[aldo_14]

Originally posted by jonskowitz
  Gee, 1 helicoptor out of about thirty that were sent and about 7000 aircraft in theater.

If you're getting this excited over victories like this then I doubt you're really winning...

What if the Iraqis managed to fix it & fly it, and used it on a few of the coalition supply convoys heading towards Baghdad?  I mean, you'd assume an apache was US, wouldn't you?

[Warlock]

Originally posted by deep_eyes


well from what i read in the papers, it was shot down, by "civilian" fire from farmers. but me thinks they was soldiers in disguise. the apache seemed unharmed in the landing but on the real... this technology, if we "persay" lost this thing, and we couldnt recover the apache... iraq gonna make a techy leap ON OUR TAXES! (domestic folk of course )

In the breifing I watched yesterday from the pentagon they said it was not farmers.

As to how tough one of these things is ,... any chopper can be taking out of the air by a .22 Rifle if hit in the right spot. Also these things had hundreds of problems during the Gulf war,...chances are just as good the Apache had a malfunction that forced them to land.


For those worried about Iraqis learning to fly it and fixing it back up to use against us,.......LOL That's doubtful..... US equipment has a few failsafes in it. PLus I'm sure the pilots cleared the computer system before they hauled ass from the crash site.

[Pez]

Originally posted by Goober5000
There are "good" Christians and "bad" Christians, just like there are "good" Muslims and "bad" Muslims.  The Crusades, the Inquisition, etc. are all examples of people doing evil things in the name of Christianity.  They've been denounced as wrong and rightly so.  However, I don't see anyone apologizing for the Muslim terrorist attacks on NYC (both times), for example.

I don't know what the muslim organizations said in the US but I think troughout Europe most of the muslim organizations condemned the attacks on 9/11.

Mmmhh....I'm no expert on Islam but does Islam have something like the Pope who can denouce things? But give it some time, if I remember correctly it took a while for the Vatican to denouce the persecution of jews.

Well, back on the war in Iraq. Any news?

[Warlock]

The head member of Islum (least I think that was what he was referred to) in the US did indeed speak out against the 9-11 attack.


As far as news on the war,.. I've not heard much...but with the sandstorm going on there currently I don't expect much ot be happening today. Last report showed the reporter holding a glowstick... nd that was all you could see,.. he was nothing more than a partial outline at 2 feet from the camera.....so until that lets up there'll doubtfully be any missions going on.

[CP5670]

Ugh. This political correctness is annoying - I don't see why we should fall all over ourselves praising Islam when this kind of stuff is going to happen anyway. If they want us to see their religion as peaceful, let them prove it.  I don't see any Muslim leaders in the U.S. denouncing violence committed in the name of Islam.

I found an interesting post on another bulletin board mentioning Muslim terrorist attacks against the U.S. starting back in 1979. It's scary that we've responded so little up until now.

I quite agree on this point for a number of reasons. And yes, political correctness is indeed absurd; why is it that things like the Flat Earth Society can be ridiculed under these rules but other ideas cannot be simply because they are religions? There is actually a lot to say on this subject, but I would probably be banned if I went into the details here.

Anyway, I don't think we will be hearing much for a few days since they are holding off due to a sandstorm. However, when they say "heavy casualties," it is given relative to the usual figures, so instead of five Americans for 3000 Iraqis, you have 10; it doesn't exactly make the task difficult for the US. That image posted earlier looks kind of funny though.

[Slasher]

This strays a little from the last few posts, but did anyone else hear the Navy is using dolphins to seek out and mark mines in the Gulf?  I guess they also attach a hook to them so they can be toed away.  

*prepares for the "old information, NEXT" response*

[CP5670]

http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,13865.0.html

[deep_eyes]

Originally posted by Warlock


In the breifing I watched yesterday from the pentagon they said it was not farmers.

As to how tough one of these things is ,... any chopper can be taking out of the air by a .22 Rifle if hit in the right spot. Also these things had hundreds of problems during the Gulf war,...chances are just as good the Apache had a malfunction that forced them to land.


For those worried about Iraqis learning to fly it and fixing it back up to use against us,.......LOL That's doubtful..... US equipment has a few failsafes in it. PLus I'm sure the pilots cleared the computer system before they hauled ass from the crash site.

i agree but hey thats what the news said, they changed it anyways. but like i said i agreed. and no the pilots didnt, the apache was hit by a tomahawk.

[Warlock]

By a tomahawk ? Ummmm not from what I've seen. A missile hit would have hmmm I donno .... left a burn mark ,...perhaps a hole
More so since a tomahawk is a cruise missile.

Gotta love news reporters ...
 "Hey something happened!"
"What?"
"I donno......but I'll whip up something in a minute!"

They've shown 360 degree footage of the downed Apache and it didn't show any clear signs of damage.

Only new event I've heard about today was that a F-16 pilot ****ed up and bombed a Patriot battery.  I'm assuming this was early this morning before the sandstorm hit.

*EDIT* I forgot to mention they spoke with the family of one of the two pilots who heard from the Military that the pilots had evaded capture for a time and two resque attempts were made, but heavy ground fire kept both missions from succeeding.

If Iraq follows the Geneva Convention, we'll learn a little more once the POWs get interviewed by the Red Cross.

[Stryke 9]

Lots of stuff, no time, but this caught my eye. I'd gloat over the good chance of the defeat being mutual (what with thousands of people from all over the Middle East going to join the Iraqi Army and fight Americans and the guerilla civilian fighters hacking away at the overextended US supply line to set up an enclosure and have a good ol' shootout at Dodge when they get to Baghdad with half the food and ammo they need), but that'd be immature and I'm not doing predictions. However, I'll point out that from the vague reports I've heard the American generals are falling for one of the oldest tricks in the book, and one that's served Russia well for centuries.

Also, I'd point out that while the American forces are all around tougher, better-equipped, and many many times more likely to survive individually in combat (I think the current US-to-nonUS death ratio is something like 1 to 20), it doesn't take nearly so many deaths on the American side to make it a "defeat". Saddam's fighting for his life, he doesn't care about upcoming elections, and he doesn't have weak-kneed voters to worry about- hell, it's not an oligarchic "republic" but a dictatorship, he never had to.

It's too bad for the US, really. Even though it's based on increasingly outdated principles of warfare, the US Army would still kick butt and take names just about anywhere it went, if only the people back home didn't have a mindset along the lines of "Deaths? In a war? Who woulda thought? We'd better pull out before someone gets hurt!!"


Also, anyone notice the Catch-22 in the POW thing? If the captured soldiers aren't properly identified, it's a hoax, if they are, it's a WAR CRIME (never mind that just today the Washington Post featured a picture of a captured Iraqi soldier, which is what Rumsfeld won't shut up about happening to US soldiers, or the whole Camp X-Ray dealie). It's funny to see how they can apply the same strain of logic over and over and over again, and hardly anyone ever notices.

[Warlock]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Also, anyone notice the Catch-22 in the POW thing? If the captured soldiers aren't properly identified, it's a hoax, if they are, it's a WAR CRIME (never mind that just today the Washington Post featured a picture of a captured Iraqi soldier, which is what Rumsfeld won't shut up about happening to US soldiers, or the whole Camp X-Ray dealie). It's funny to see how they can apply the same strain of logic over and over and over again, and hardly anyone ever notices.

I think the difference is in the manner they're shown. The first Iraqi broadcast showed bodies of PWOs,...some was reported to have clear shots to the head. (How truth all this is I'm not sure of,...CNN's known to jump the gun)

Just heard something on CNN about the family of one of the POWs,...the chubby female cook ,.. her family was saying "She's a fighter,..she'll get out of it....she's a fighter" ......I'm sorry but that had me laughing .... I've yet to know of a single cook in the army that even trained on combat tactics outside of boot camp,...since during every field op we went on ... they spent all freaking day cooking. But I guess whatever it takes to give a family hope eh ?

[Stryke 9]

Eh, war's messy. And I bet if I did a Google search right now, I could come up with a couple hundred pictures from the Balkans, Afghanistan, etc. of the same sort of thing taken by American reporters. Never mind that a picture of a guy with nothing above the shoulders constitutes the nasty bit of war journalism, not a war crime. If they executed them, certainly, but "making people feel bad" is not a war crime, except under the Bush regime.

It remains to be seen whether the Geneva Convention toadies up, but at the current rate the US isn't gonna have a lotta clout anywhere once the dust settles (you'd better believe that, regardless of the fact that a lot of governments are sucking up to the US right now, there's a good chance that in the next couple election cycle we're gonna see a lotta governments taking power on an anti-US campaign, it's just too convenient now to resist).

Besides, that's not what the bad man was complaining about. It was the interrogating prisoners to get them to confirm their identities on TV that got the White House's knickers in a bunch. After all, dead guys aren't bad propoganda so much as guys who are undeniably not just Iraqis in US soldier suits.

[Warlock]

yea I've gotta say I hate the fact that the media is making this into a ****ing reality theme-show. What I'm waiting to see is the reaction of some of the POWs afterwards as to how half the time their families are finding out about them by the nightly news.

I know damned well I'd never want to find out about my son in that manner.

Course it has proven just the intellect level of some of these reporters.... this morning one was giving a reporter ...outside...during the sandstorm...kept rubbing his eyes and the newscasters back home were saying how concerned for him they were .... yet the dumbass never once put goggles on

[Turnsky]

welcome to the world of the real, warlock....

Iraq's treatment of POW's  (past and present) leaves a lot to be desired... the geneva convention dictates that all prisioners of war are to be unharmed and to be protected from Public humilitation and curiousity as well as being released when the hostilities end, etc... as well as the fair treatment of civilians (whether they're your countrymen or not) is paramount..
voilations of these can constitute a war crime...

on another note, i didn't know you had children warlock..

[Stryke 9]

Turnsky: Define Camp X-Ray. Define all the pictures of captured Iraqi soldiers on the headlines of US newspapers. It may be a violation of the letter of the law, but given a choice between accepting the case and getting pointed out as a hypocritical puppet of the US by an exceedingly anti-US world, taking that one and then turning around and prosecuting a government you can't enforce **** against and getting proven ineffective, and throwing the case out to a few American catcalls and that's about it, what would you do?

[Turnsky]

true, but at least the US, doesn't go around parading the pow's like a prize kill...

see what germany and japan did to thier POW's at the end of WWII? that's what i meant.

[Stryke 9]

'Course it doesn't. There are a lot of them, and we were expecting even more. The Iraqis are naturally exuberant about capturing almost an entire squad of American troops, since their experiences have been almost entirely on the other side of the equation.

That's another thing, really, the divide between approaches- the US can ***** all it likes about how the approach the Iraqi army takes to war just isn't sporting, but rules of warfare are for the people who can afford to constrain themselves slightly. If the US army was outmanned, outgunned, and out-teched, you'd better believe we'd be being at least as nasty as the worst of what the Iraqi army can do. There's no such thing as playing dirty when it's your life (and your family's life and everyone you know's life) on the line, and you're not likely to win in a "fair" fight (as much as that term's applicable in a straight fight between the small Iraqi army with outdated weaponry and the huge American army with all the fanciest weapons and spy gear ever to come out of Cold War science fiction).

[Turnsky]

well technically there are no 'rules of war' you're right there...

well, as far as the war goes, it's gonna get a helluva lot worse before it's over. That, i can be certain of..

[Warlock]

Originally posted by Turnsky
welcome to the world of the real, warlock....

Ummmm ok donno what that's being directed at so I'll just leave it be

on another note, i didn't know you had children warlock..

Yea but he's only 6 so I've got no worries for now Course I know when I was active I wouldn't want my family to find out about me on the 6 OClock news.


The sad thing is ... The Geneva Convention is mostly bull****,... since if you really look back ... .mostly only the US and her allies ever follow it.  Some asspects like the Treatment of POWs is just human kindness,... but there's other parts that to me made no since ,... like a .50 Cal machine gun is not to be fired directly at personel unless you have no other weapon as it's an anti-equipment/tank/etc weapon. Now firing it as covering fire in front of troops is legit.    Some of the **** we learned in boot will just blow a sane man's mind

[Mr. Vega]

"Deaths? In a war? Who woulda thought? We'd better pull out before someone gets hurt!!"

Ever read Fahrenheit 451?

And how are the US principles of warfare outdated? The standard tactic now is to bash the living **** out of their opponent with airstrikes and cruise missiles until they outnumber them 15 to 1 and then move in on the ground.

Althought that really doesn't work if the enemy fights does guerrila warfare like in Vietnam, but to my knowledge there aren't many jungles in Iraq (that I know about:nervous: ) or anything else you can hide in.