[General Battuta]

Extremely impressive article. I was blown away by the degree of care they take to avoid civilian casualties, and by the sexy modeling techniques they have.

[NGTM-1R]

The US cut out night ops for the same reason, which struck me as a somewhat stupid decision, but apparently it freaks the Afghanis out so much that we can operate at night that we had to stop.

[Nuke]

what we need is some kind of areal sniper system. essentially a one shot one kill weapon that works from 30000 feet.

[headdie]

the problem is that speed and other factors involved means that the kind of precision needed from the air is just not possible and as much as i hate to say it, removal of direct air support is perversely a necessity to "win" wars like Afghanistan because they are as much propaganda wars as wars with bullets so every civilian NATO kills is more recruits for the Taliban, more sympathizers hiding and donating to them.

tbh i think that America could do more to help them, take the British involvement in the Iraq war, we went in, did our bit to clear out enemy fighters, then started doing little bits to make life easier for the locals like dig irrigation trenches, patch up building and rebuild civil infrastructure, stuff to encourage the locals not only to stop disliking us but actually start supporting us, the result, British forces have been able to pretty much pulled out of Iraq with relatively successful handing over to locals in Basra (though they are now having problems they relate to local government and the Iraq defense ministry not behaving) where as the Americans still struggle with Baghdad

[NGTM-1R]

tbh i think that America could do more to help them, take the British involvement in the Iraq war, we went in, did our bit to clear out enemy fighters, then started doing little bits to make life easier for the locals like dig irrigation trenches, patch up building and rebuild civil infrastructure, stuff to encourage the locals not only to stop disliking us but actually start supporting us, the result, British forces have been able to pretty much pulled out of Iraq with relatively successful handing over to locals in Basra (though they are now having problems they relate to local government and the Iraq defense ministry not behaving) where as the Americans still struggle with Baghdad

A Colonel McMasters, USA, would like to point out he told you how to do it.

(Go read The War Within if you want to know where successful Iraq war strategies come from.)

[redsniper]

...using a system called PSS-SOF — short for Precision Strike Suite for Special Operations Forces, and pronounced “piss off.”

[Mr. Vega]

Extremely impressive article. I was blown away by the degree of care they take to avoid civilian casualties, and by the sexy modeling techniques they have.

Only problem is their bombs just aren't anywhere near as accurate as they say they are. There's a reason we killed 100,000+ in Iraq by bombing alone before we sent in ground forces.

[General Battuta]

If you read the article, you'll note the techniques described are relatively recent, an effort to avoid just that kind of massive civilian damage.

In fact, yeah, read the article before further discussion. I'm not a fan of bombing, even tactical bombing, as an element of COIN operations, and the article touches on that at great length.

[Scotty]

Extremely impressive article. I was blown away by the degree of care they take to avoid civilian casualties, and by the sexy modeling techniques they have.

Only problem is their bombs just aren't anywhere near as accurate as they say they are. There's a reason we killed 100,000+ in Iraq by bombing alone before we sent in ground forces.

May I  assume from the way you say "before we sent in ground forces" that you mean Operation Desert Storm?  If yes, the total of 100,000 was from EVERYTHING, not just bombing (which would have been reason enough for a political ****storm by itself).  Air bombing casualties for civilians are unlikely to have exceeded 4000.  Which, for a total of 110000 combat sorties over 43 days, is downright tiny.

[General Battuta]

No matter the cause, 4000 deaths of innocent civilians is not tiny. We committed a 9/11 scale massacre right there.

[QuantumDelta]

Larger?

[Scotty]

However, when 4000 deaths are spread over 110000 combat flights and 60000 tons of ordinance dropped, those casualties become relatively tiny (and CERTAINLY significantly less than Mr. Vega's 100000 dead from bombings figure).

[Turambar]

However, when 4000 deaths are spread over 110000 combat flights and 60000 tons of ordinance dropped, those casualties become relatively tiny (and CERTAINLY significantly less than Mr. Vega's 100000 dead from bombings figure).

of course it's ok because it's us that did it, not some terrorists.

[Sushi]

(ignores argument)

That is, indeed, an awesome article.  Thanks Battuta, I enjoyed that.

I find it interesting that although U.S. combat doctrine has been focused on Air Superiority for so long, it's turning out to be counterproductive in Afghanistan...

It just goes to show that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. I'm just glad we are adapting.

[General Battuta]

However, when 4000 deaths are spread over 110000 combat flights and 60000 tons of ordinance dropped, those casualties become relatively tiny (and CERTAINLY significantly less than Mr. Vega's 100000 dead from bombings figure).

No, no they don't. No matter the end involved, the loss of 4000 human lives is a tragedy, an act of evil, and a waste. It's disgusting to suggest that 4000 deaths is 'relatively tiny' when each of those deaths involves a degree of anguish neither you nor I can imagine.

This isn't to say that we should never do anything that kills civilians. Sometimes it's simply necessary. But we can't lose sight of the fact that we are committing a crime, even in service of a greater good.

We just console ourselves with the proposition that we somehow prevented greater evil by carrying out this act. Some might agree, some might not.

[Scotty]

There is nothing disgusting about saying that 4000 deaths, for any reason, is 'relatively tiny' compared to 100000, because, frankly, it is.  4% is a relatively tiny amount when compared to the full hundred.

That isn't to say it isn't bad, because nothing that kills people undeserving can be anything but.

[General Battuta]

That wasn't what you said, even in your own quote. You only added in the comparison to the larger figure in a parenthetical remark.

You suggested the figure was tiny compared to the number of flights it took to kill all those people.

[Scotty]

Hmmm, so it does.  I had what I thought I said in my head while writing, and it turns out it didn't say that.

In which case, I will rescind the first of those comments.

[Stormkeeper]

Nice article, that. Good show, General. But you also sidetracked me for 4 hours because I started reading the other Wired articles.

[Uchuujinsan]

On a related note, in Germany we had an incident a few weeks ago, where civilians (officially 74) were killed by a requested air strike. It was especially criticized for not acting according to the new NATO rules for requesting air strikes (you need to have two independent sources confirming no civilians are in the vicinity) and well, we still got some pretty big fallout - two high ranking members of the military had to leave, and the (former) secretary of defense is currently in trouble because of it.
And Germany will probably pay a few millions indemnities for this. :/

Just to show that other countries have their mistakes as well