Chaos in USA

[Woody]

Royal Marines have forced US troops to surrender just days into a training exercise after eliminating almost the entire unit.

The British commandos “dominated” US forces during a training exercise in California, using a new battle structure.

The Telegraph understands the US forces asked for a “reset” half way into the five-day war fighting exercise, having suffered significant simulated casualties.

At one point in the battle, the commandos’ “kill board”, an intelligence assessment of the level of damage inflicted upon enemy equipment and units, had a tick against almost every American asset, indicating it had been deemed destroyed or rendered inoperable.

[Boac]

Boo hoo... they just didn't play fair. Ah - poor Septics.

[Undried Plum]

Comparatively recently a Swedish submarine snuck in to a US Carrier Strike Force on exercise and 'took out' the carrier.

Methinks there might be some rude awakenings for the Septics if they try to take on the Chinkydinks.

[Rossian]

The thing about a carrier is you don't have to sink it, just put the flight deck out of limits ie a serious list.
The battle damage systems will make a serious effort to "balance the ship" by flooding compensating compartments. I was assured of this by a USN captain who had been CAG (commander air group) on the USS Eisenhower in a previous existence.

The Ancient Mariner

[John Hill]

Boo hoo... they just didn't play fair. Ah - poor Septics.

Those Talibs didnt play fair either.

[prospector]

It would appear that anything is fair, by their rules. How can it be possible to slaughter these kids and their father, by a gross error, yet nobody is responsible??

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/watchd ... -airstrike

"Watchdog finds no misconduct in mistaken Afghan airstrike"

[John Hill]

Thank God the world is in such safe hands!

[boing]

It is not being investigated to prevent it opening Pandora's Box. If an investigation went ahead it would raise questions such as why the difficult to defend international airport was chosen for the retreat instead of the readily defended Baghram airbase. There would be questions about troop availability after the ground troops had been stupidly reduced. Basically the people involved in command have been quite successful in deflecting the public interest from A'stan by simply letting it melt away to be replaced by other sensational domestic problems such as immigration and law making. The powers that be want A'stan forgotten and a prolonged public inquiry is not in their interest so the blame evaporates like the morning mist. Move on, nothing to see here.

Miley has said Biden was told to keep 2500 troops in position to cover the retreat. Biden has said he was never told any such thing. Everybody has dirty laundry so it is better for them to circle the wagons rather than to get picked off individually. Welcome to the rotting zone where the military think they are politicians and politicians think that they are military experts and watchdogs are lapdogs.

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[John Hill]

. If an investigation went ahead it would raise questions such as why the difficult to defend international airport was chosen for the retreat instead of the readily defended Baghram airbase.

Who told you Baghram could be readily defended and of course you know it is about 30 miles from Kabul?

[boing]

Well, actually my son who was based there. Accommodation for 10,000 people, miles of razor wire and concrete wall, squadrons of ground attack helicopters and A10s and heavily fortified access points. The base had its own power grid and supplies as well as the supplies that could be flown in from the US. What else would you expect? Since the base was 30 miles from Kabul at the end of a single main road Baghram controlled the road from Kabul to the base and unfriendly forces could be kept well away from the base. This assumes some moron did not reduce the troops before the evacuation was complete as Biden did.

The evacuation debacle was based on the belief that the Taliban could not effectively react to the US withdrawal in much less than 30 days with the A'stan army in position. It was based on the idea that a few US troops and the Afghan army could control Kabul until all the Americans and their supporters had been evacuated. Dummy Biden abandoned Baghram a month or so before the evacuation despite military advice, withdrew troops because the intelligence community fed him poor information and made the fatal mistake of believing the international airport could be kept completely under US control until the withdrawal was complete. It transpires that several military leaders told Biden that he should keep 2,500 troops on the ground until the evacuation was complete, he ignored them.


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[prospector]

Hopefully the result of the Governors election in Virginia is an indication of things to come in America, and also the election of the Lt Governor. That should hopefully shut up a lot of this racist crap, but then again maybe not.

[John Hill]

Since the base was 30 miles from Kabul at the end of a single main road Baghram controlled the road from Kabul to the base and unfriendly forces could be kept well away from the base.

A 'single main road' eh? How were the thousands of evacuees supposed to make their way from Kabul to Bagram?

I trust your son got home safely.

[boing]

Thank you, my son had left well before the retreat.

Imagine you controlled forces that were retreating before a strong enemy and the obstacle blocking the retreat was a wide river with only one major bridge crossing. You would fortify the bridge area while you still controlled it and throw out a perimeter of combat troops which moved in towards the bridgehead as your support units moved over the bridge to safety. You would leave your combat forces facing the enemy to slow them down while the river crossing took place. Eventually your last troops would cross the bridge at which point you would destroy it.

Did dopey Joe do this? No, he abandoned the bridge (Baghram). He reduced his combat forces before he had guaranteed the safety of the civilians. He committed whoever remained to cross the river under enemy fire with whatever boats they could find. He did everything exactly backwards despite warnings from the military. For the sake of not leaving a few thousand troops in A'stan for a few weeks longer and making no well thought plans for the evacuation he turned what could have been a well handled evacuation into a miserable defeat. He had all of the power, resources and time he needed to succeed but to meet a self-imposed deadline he played the game like a novice to a video game and I don't think he still understands how great his blunder was.

The road from Kabul to Baghram was no problem. Remember that at this point the US combat units and the Afghan army still controlled the Kabul area. It was only after Dopey Joe removed US combat units that the Afghan army collapsed and the Taliban moved in. Heck, the Taliban suggested leaving Kabul under US control temporarily even though they were in the suburbs..

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[llondel]

Hopefully the result of the Governors election in Virginia is an indication of things to come in America, and also the election of the Lt Governor. That should hopefully shut up a lot of this racist crap, but then again maybe not.

Not necessarily. Apparently since the 1980s, the governors in Virginia and New Jersey always went to the opposition party the year following a new president. This year the Democrats held on to New Jersey.

[boing]

"Held on to New Jersey" is technically correct but it needs analysis. NJ has always voted strongly D, the voter move in the Governor's race was a 16% swing from D to R, if it had been 16.5% the R's would have won. Carrying the 16% swing forward to a hypothetical 2022 mid-term election would, apparently, I have not checked the figures, result in a D loss of 33% of the seats involved.

Even in the seats they won these elections were a disaster for the Ds. The results of the elections will not be seen for a while, will the Ds decide to temper their policies to align with the voters or will they push the present unpopular policies more heavily to try to get some changes made that cannot be easily reversed?

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[Undried Plum]

The US had no place in Afghanistan.

Neither did Britain.

[boing]

But then, did the British have no place in India, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand or America? There are success stories as well as disasters and who can tell which way the future will go. It could be argued based on statistics that Islam has been a far greater curse than Western Colonialism, I think it would be difficult to name any Islamic country that would be worth anything were it not for oil reserves. Should Islam have been confined to a small corner of Arabia?

Love it or hate it British Colonialism did, at its demise, leave deserving countries in a better state to compete in the World than other nations. This is self evident.

Whether we should have been Afghanistan depends on which motivation you consider. The original British involvement in Afghanistan was to prevent Russian involvement in India and similarly, later, to foil the similar German intent. Was protecting the Jewel in the Crown worthwhile? Afghanistan in itself meant nothing it was just in the wrong place, rather like Belgium really.


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[Undried Plum]

rather like Belgium really.

**** Belgium!

It's a wholly artificial state.

Fukkit!

[boing]

How are the mighty fallen .........

[media]https://www.tampafp.com/on-a-night-of-e ... in-of-all/[/media]


EDIT
It is now confirmed that Durr has won this election.







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[John Hill]

But then, did the British have no place in India, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand or America?

Which of those could be called a success and why did you leave out South Africa?