RE: Vietnam and modern combat

At 7:04 PM -0700 4/26/04, John Atkinson wrote:
>
>I'm sorry.  What I meant was that unlike Vietnam, the
>'guerillas' in Iraq do not have a triple canopy jungle
>to hide under.  Therefore grouping in large units and
>trying to duke it out with conventional troops is
>distinctly unhealthy.	Never mind special operations
>with entire squadrons of close air support on call.

Hell, the AC-130s are even deadlier than they 
were in the Vietnam day. They're pressurized, the 
armament is trainable, they have radar directors 
for adjusting rounds out to put them on target 
regardless of turbulence and crosswinds, and the 
pilot isn't aiming with a stick and cross-hairs 
on his left window.

They can put rounds down more accurately, with 
better sensors (ground mapping radar, Thermal 
Imaging, Low Light Cameras, GPS and all sorts of 
other cool doodads. Hell, the pressurized "gun 
deck" makes it even easier for the rear crew to 
serve the armament.

A Gyrene that's working in Kabul now watched an 
AC-130 work over an area North of Tikrit (iirc) 
for several days running. He said it was the most 
awesome and grim thing he'd seen yet.

There's video running around of an AC-130 hunting 
Afgani's that are fleeing a compound that it lit 
up. There's a ground controller that guide's them 
initially and then gives them clearance to fire. 
There was no hiding from that aircraft that the 
guys on the ground probably couldn't even hear 
until it started dropping 40 and 105mm HE on 
them. A grim thing to watch men die that way.

-- 
--
Ryan Gill	       rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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