Number of enemy losses

[Oligo 1]

I wonder. The U.S. is claiming a success in operation Anaconda, yet the allied afgans are saying the enemy casualty tally given by the yanks is too high.

Related News Item.

Which source is closer to the truth? Is this another case of U.S. lying to make their ops look better like in Yugoslavia or is it the allied afgans who are mistaken?

[ralphwiggum 6]

nah...just becuase body isn't there doesn't mean that there were no casulaties.

and as Yugoslavia example dictates, sooner or later, they loose.

[Hilandor 1]

what i had heard on the news was that operation anaconda was meant to be a swift mission thru winter months, now that the afgan winter is almost over meaning that the al queda will be a bit more mobile again, the US have asked for a 1700 strong commando force from Uk to help out in the operation.

[Gorgi Knootewoot 0]

I don'da a What the....as889 my backspace button doesn't work. @#$%

[Gorgi Knootewoot 0]

Ah, resetting this piece of crap computer did the trick The backspace works again. but now i forgot what i would tell you

[Pete 1]

its so normal in war....id say casualties on enemy side are as average 3 times less in reality, just quessing tho...but even in battle of brittain english pilots reported 2-3 times more kills than they really got.

a dog or donkey that gets killed is counted as 2 enemies killed....

[Wobble 1]

yet the allied afgans are saying the enemy casualty tally given by the yanks is too high.

how would they, over half the afghan forces who said they were gonna halp in anaconda never showed up.. thats why the US is calling for other NATO countries now isted.. at least you know the damn brits/aus/whatever will show up..

as for the casualties.. who would know better? the people who went in and cleaned out the caves and inspected them? or the guys who more or less decided to not show up for the battle?

alot of the actions on behalf of the afghan forces would be considered outright and dissertion were thaty part of the US force..

But Afghan commanders fighting with US forces have been quoted as saying many fighters simply slipped across the border along secret mountain paths. They also said few bodies had been found.

yes, some did escape, because so many of the afghan forces did not show up to plug the wholes like they said they would (highest bidder anyone?)

few bodies? well thats what happens whe you hit caves with LGB penetrator bombs and B-52 raids..

stand a group of 30 people in a cave and shoot a 2000 pound bomb into it.. see how many bodies ya find,,

also remember that alot of caves were simply blown all too hell.. and collapsed.. you see fire coming from a cave and the al-queda run into there.. then you hit it with a few giant bombs and it gets blown all to hell even collapses.. kinda hard to count bodies...

case in point::

General Hackenback said few whole bodies had been found because many of those killed had been vaporised by the intense bombing by US B-52.

According to Reuters, he gave the example of 40 enemy fighters who were spotted in a mud hut before an air strike was called in.

Afghan troops joined in with the offensive

"When they (US) troops went in on the ground afterwards they found 40 pairs of shoes," General Hackenback said.

"All we saw were a couple of body parts sticking out of a 15-foot high mud heap."

you dont get bodies.. from a B-52 strike.. at best you get chunks..

especially in a cave situation.. its an all or nothing.. a 2000 pounder like the penetrator or even a 500pound egge goes into a cave with people in it.. they are simpley blown from existance..

Britain has now said it will send 1,700 troops to help the fight against remaining Taleban and al-Qaeda forces, raising further doubts about the effectiveness of US operations so far.

what a crock of shit.. all it shows is the US doubts of the effectiveness (and trustworthyness) of the afghan fighters..

it was plainley said yesterday that since the afghan fighters failed to do their share and what they said.. and insted just didnt show up, that the US was not going to rely on the as much any more.(probably not much at all). and get some REAL troops to help (I.E. the brits)

its not that the US needs MORE help.. it needs the help that it has to actually show of for the battle and do what they say they will.. the afghan allies have proven themsevles woefully unreliable in Anaconda and the US doesnet want allies it cant depend on.. and it knows it can depend on the brits..

in fact there will probably be LESS people on the ground now.. god knows how many afghan fighters those ~1700 brits will be taking the place of..

I for one am glad for it, the Brits know their shit and can be trusted to do their part..

Im sure nothing sucks more in war than not knowing if the X thousand troops who are supposed to help you are even going to show up..

sheesh

I wish the brits luck, hope they do their country proud..

[foxer 0]

yes,happens all the time.In vietnam you only got half a kill for killing a kid.

Just kidding.

[Wobble 1]

oh yea.. casualties.. its not like WW1 where after the battle you can go out on the plane and count corpses.. whenever there are high explosives (2000 pound bombs and whatnot) and rugged terrain and drifting snow and ALL kinds of different factors.. getting anything resembeling an accurate body count is next to impossable..

the US doesent have any reason to lie or inflate, casualties were light, the goal was accomplished (push them out of the area)..  there is nothing to make up for..

and if large numbers DID escape.. you can think the noble afghan fighters who were supposed to guard the back door..  they were not in the mood to fight.. too bad they didnt let anybody know in any other way besides their absence at crunch time..

yes,happens all the time.In vietnam you only got half a kill for killing a kid

yea unless ya get him after he throws his frag or sticks in in yer boot (over 150 soldiers were killed by children in south vietnam cities who simply walked up and shot them with a pistol or threw a grenade at them).. pf course the little bastard was killed..

actually that reminds me of a story a guy my dad knew told him.. him and a few others were on a quike break in some city in SV (name eludes me, not saigon) and were in a bar and a small child of about 10 asked if they wanted their boots cleaned for 2 dollars each.. one of them said "sure" and gave the kid his boots, the kid came back a few min later with the boots cleaned and sat them down and ran off... the guy went to put them on but the right wouldent go on all the way.. the he realized there was something in the toe.. he threw the boot out the window fearing it was a frag.. but nothing happened.... eventually they pickedup the boot and cut it open.. the kid had wedged a small wooden home made pressure activated type mine in the toe of the boot.. but he had put it in backwards so the trigger (a zippo spring with a small cap) was facing the front and wasent set off by the soldiers foot..

same kind of shit happened in somalia. kids so small they couldent even shoulder the AK and had to hold it under their arm to fire it.. twisted shit..

[Oligo 1]

I'm glad we have such an unbiased and reliable source as Wobble to sort out all of our U.S. questions. I knew I just needed to ask.

[foxer 0]

Well wobble is right,if a bomb hits your house ,i bet they won't find you.If they do find you ,you'll be all over the place.

[Longinius 1]

"the US doesent have any reason to lie or inflate, casualties were light, the goal was accomplished (push them out of the area).. there is nothing to make up for.."

Politics, prestige and PR...reasons enough to lie.

I think a body count is rarely that accurate in times like these. The body count during the Vietnam war was not that accurate either. It is simply to hard to make a proper estiment. Sure, maybe they shouldn't even try, but who really cares. It is who is victorious at the end of the day that counts.

[Wobble 1]

I guess they way they get their numbers (the only way really possaable) is to go by experence..  people know about how many people can put up a certin amount of fire.. use a certin amout of goods.. etc etc..

If you see 10 different muzzle flashes coming from a cave.. and then blow it up.. and then see no flashes.. well then ya kinda have to guess that the 10 flashes were 10 guys with guns and since they are not shooting after the blast they are dead..

of course its not the most accurate way to do it, but there arnt really any better ways givin the situation, weapons, climate and terrain..

problems are:

A: bodies get carrie doff by survivers

B: bodies get blown to smitherenes

C: bodies are buried by debris

D: bodies are buired in snow

there are lots of things that can happen to a dead body in a war.... long long before the winning side gets a chance to get to it..

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Oligo @ Mar. 22 2002,10:50)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I'm glad we have such an unbiased and reliable source as Wobble to sort out all of our U.S. questions. I knew I just needed to ask.<span id='postcolor'>

[LauryThorn 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">the goal was accomplished (push them out of the area)<span id='postcolor'>

I think the goal was to find the guilty (although I would refer to him as a scapegoat),

Osama bin Laden..

And stop terrorism.

(And secure oil supply.)

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">you see fire coming from a cave and the al-queda run into there..<span id='postcolor'>

The soldiers were Taleban soldiers, right??

[Longinius 1]

Taleban, Al Queda, mercenaries...a fair mix of the lot.

[Oligo 1]

Some points:

If a bomb hits my house, there isn't any way of telling whether I was in it or not. Even if you find my boots in the rubble. Thus it is totally unproductive to debate this issue, since we all seem to agree that it is impossible to keep a tally.

I'd really like to see the news items about afgans 'not showing up'. All I have seen in reports about Anaconda are these words: 'U.S. and allied Afghan troops have killed a lot of Al-Qaeda again today.' Good times were had by all.

If the Afghans were indeed guarding the back doors, I think they have excellent first hand knowledge about how many Al-Qaeda they let slip through.

[Pete 1]

i quess its more like that if you see 10 muzle flashes come you ASSUME that there's another 30 behind them, waiting for someone to die so they can shoot thru the small opening of the cave...

it really does not matter much, makes no difference.

but as far it goes to experience, always the enemy bodycount has been OVERestimated...lies are usual, propaganda reasons...normal, not only usa does it, so dont turn it into a flame usa thread please (goes to wobble as well as others).

if govt say 500 enemies died its possible more like 100 enemies died, a soldier reports what he thinks, a officer reports what he supposes looks a little better on paper, a general then adds to that just a little more...by the time it reaches the media there's been many hands adding to those numbers....the final adding comes of course by the last one holding the papers...a body count of 15 own and 100 enemies doesnt look as good 500 enemies towards your 15 dead.

when a mudhut/cave gets hit by a large bomb and vaporizes the bodies...the true numbers will never be known, any number is just a quess...and its not unlikely to quess a little higher number than is realistic...

few conlficts show accurate numbers of casualties....not even ww1, the death toll varies by a few millions....

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Wobble @ Mar. 22 2002,11:03)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">problems are:

A: bodies get carrie doff by survivers

B: bodies get blown to smitherenes

C: bodies are buried by debris

D: bodies are buired in snow<span id='postcolor'>

Yes. There are also these problems:

A. Debris prevents people from realizing nobody was there to die (=no casualties)

B. Snow covers areas and thus makes it impossible to discover that the enemy had slipped away before bombardment/assault

C. Dust can be many bodies disintegrated or no bodies disintegrated (lot of dust in Afganistan)

[Wobble 1]

think the goal was to find the guilty (although I would refer to him as a scapegoat),

well if you think that BIn-Laden didnt do it after seeing his video and watching him comment about how happy things went and his elation at the towers actually falling saying "i didnt expect that they would actually fall"

well then thats your disability..

and if you read what anaconda was about.. it was to deny the reamining taleban and al-queda forces the use of the massive cave complexes in that area.. and thats what was done.. they tried to hunker down in there and they were pushed out.. and many killed.. period

(And secure oil supply.)

the US and UK get their oil from the same place, OPEC..

the only remote oil related idea for afghanistan would be a piplene from the pocket under the caspian sea across part of afghan and into other parts of central asia.. Afghanistan itself has no oil reserves sufficent of even drilling AFAIK.. the nearest oil pocket is in Turkmeinistan (sp)

The soldiers were Taleban soldiers, right??

certinly some were, but also large numbers of Al-queda aswell..

[LauryThorn 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> soldier reports what he thinks<span id='postcolor'>

Oh man, remember Full Metal Jacket, when they reported:

"Heavy enemy resistance. Armor support needed."

And after all, their "sniper" or "heavy resistance" was just

a woman with an AK-47...

[Oligo 1]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Pete @ Mar. 22 2002,11:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">but as far it goes to experience, always the enemy bodycount has been OVERestimated...lies are usual, propaganda reasons...normal, not only usa does it, so dont turn it into a flame usa thread please (goes to wobble as well as others).<span id='postcolor'>

Of course everybody does it. Definitely no U.S. bashing involved.

[Wobble 1]

A. Debris prevents people from realizing nobody was there to die

get shot at by nothing alot do ya?

I guess if you REALLY want to belive that everyone got away and the US totally botched everything and fucked everything up..etc etc.. you can ignore the firt had accounts and get that conclusion.. or you can simply listen to what the people who were actually there say and accept that it is atleast somewhat true.. guess its all about what you WANT to believe..

[foxer 0]

Let's ask a real question,What do you think happen to the people on the planes when it crash into the wtc,pentagon? I think it's like a cheese grinder.What do you people think ?

[Wobble 1]

interesting note foxer...  no identifieable remains from ANY of the people on either plane was ever found.. the only way they knew who was on was passenger manifest..