General Chat

Tragically 3 soldiers from the Royal Highland Fusiliers, the 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, have been killed in Afghanistan after their armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, bringing the total killed to date to 444, six other soldiers were injured in the blast :-(

It has not only cost 444 of our soldiers their lives, it has also devastated the lives of their families and friends. All as a result of a war which politicians argue is being fought to protect us from terrorism. This war to date has cost the tax payer in excess of £20 Billion pounds and in my opinion this war will do nothing to alleviate any threat his country faces from terrorism.

The Prime Minister David Cameron said it is important work that our troops are doing, because it's vital that country doesn't again become a haven for terrorists, terrorists that can threaten us here in the UK.

Does the Prime Minister not realise that if they cannot operate out of Afghanistan there are plenty other rogue states that terrorist can use as A base for their activities :-S

We are an island and I cannot help wondering, that if we had spent that £20 Billion pounds on effective security of our borders, increased our security services here and in our overseas embassies & consulates, we could have protected ourselves from terrorism without the loss of so many lives.

What do you think ?

so sad and it seemingly just goes on and on without any end in sight

I agree with you OFITG

:-(

The problem with using the money for defence rather than what is happening now (Aggressive defence) is that our security would need to be 100% faultless and would no doubt affect every ones daily life with security check points in every city town and village,

Security doesn't stop once people are over our boarder being an Island makes no odds

The terrorist only has to be successful/lucky once where as security has to be successful every time and luck has no part to play

I look at it like this, if your busy defending its only a matter of time before the opposition score a goal, if your attacking you have the ball it makes it much harder for the opposition to score


Roy

It made me feel sick this morning when I heard the news, too close to home for me.

My avatar is of my nephew and his grandad (my dad) saying farewell last month as he set off for Camp Bastion.

It was a very emotional day for them both as dad has terminal cancer and my nephew will not return home till November.

I just hope and prey that they will meet again.

**Ann** Please God your nephew will be safe.

There will never be and end to the troubles in Afghanistan, to much
history over the centuries, in the 1979-1989 war the Russians lost over
Fourteen Thousand killed, they decided to get out before more lives
were lost.

F.

I still think the Prime Minister is being ingenuous in saying that the work that our troops are doing in Afghanistan is vital to ensure that it does not again become a haven for terrorists, terrorists that can threaten us here in the UK.

The terrorists were in Afghanistan long before we were, the terrorists are in Afghanistan now, they will be in Afghanistan after we leave.

In the event the terrorists cannot operate from bases in Afghanistan, they will operate from some other country, sadly it is a war that will do nothing to reduce the threat of terrorism facing this country and the world today, and regrettably if it has achieved anything, it is that it has increase the terrorists determination to spread their evil acts :-(

The army seems to be incapable of learning anything. Soliders being killed inside armoured vehicles by external last is nothing new.

Have you ever seen the demo of a line of steel balls hanging from a wire; swing the first ball, it hits the second one and the last ball moves without any movement of those in between ? External armour does not stop the blast wave being transmitted.

My grandfather fought in Afghanistan, I have been several times to the Pashtun territory. The people who live there are normal people, not terrorists. They have never asked foreign armies - Greeks, Mongols, British, Russians, Americans - to stomp all over their country and kill their young men. When this happened to France the people who fought against it were called the Resistance. When Afghans want to throw out the Russian invader they too are the noble resistance. But when they dislike being in the gunsights of a BlackHawk they are suddenly "terrorists". Duh.

It is desperately sad to see British blood and treasure expended over such a pointless war which will have no long term benefit but will leave bad blood for a long time to come.

To blame a whole country for 9/11 is absurd and if that was the American casa bellae then they should have gone for Saudi. The best way to defend the country against terrorism and illegal drugs is to beef up security at the ports and keep tabs on our own home grown hot heads. Instead internal security is subject to the same spending axe as anything else.

At least the armies of the west are packing up and going home. Soon the film makers will be busy making movies to follow up the Deer Hinter, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and Good Morning Vietnam.

The flags will fly no more, just the women will cry.

And we will ignore the coming vicious civil war in a far away country about which we still know nothing.

Rollo,

(The army seems to be incapable of learning anything.) Soliders being killed inside armoured vehicles by external last is nothing new. (think you meant external blast)

Have you ever seen the demo of a line of steel balls hanging from a wire; swing the first ball, it hits the second one and the last ball moves without any movement of those in between ? External armour does not stop the blast wave being transmitted.)

That is an incorrect statement, Armies all over the world learn lessons. and develop counter measures, If they didn't we would still be fighting wars using bows and arrows

Armour amongst other things does help disapate shock waves even when a shaped charge is used

Roy

Thank you Paula.....he has two weeks in the camp to acclimatise so you feel they are quite safe till they are sent out to face god knows what on the outside.

I take dad for his chemo a few times a month to the Queen Elizabeth in Birmingham and we see the results of that bloody war every time we go...you g lives that will never be the same again. <3

That available weapons have more fire power than in the days of bows and arrows does not prove that army commanders and in particular army bureaucrats have learned much.

The same strategic and tactical mistakes have been made again and again all the way back to Hannibal. That is why these old campaigns are studied in staff college.

During ww2 the learning process as to what worked and what did not was very rapid. Learning in the Middle East has not been very noticable.

The British have been fighting around the Middle East since the Dhofar campaign in Oman without ever finding a decent troop support - or even a reliable gun. The reasons for this are many.

The Mastiff is certainly not a solution but bought in panic by the previous govt when it discovered it was fighting a real war. Once the hundred odd vehicles are back in the UK it is difficult to see what future role they might have. Maybe they'll be left behind for Karzi - the whole fleet cost about the same as a single Typhoon jet.

The particular set of long known maxims which those in charge of the Afghanistan campaign seem to have forgotten is that is is impossible to hold territory that you do not control. I might add that a second is under estimating your enemy.

The Americans try and work around this by using helicopters as much as possible but even then they have lost more men to IEDs than anything else. The helicopter poor British rely more on troop carriers and are thus sitting ducks.

It is impossible to make a bomb proof troop carrier and the Mastiff has weak points all over the place. In the current context the V blast deflection underneath is not a lot of help when 90% of the blast is from the side. The Taliban are not stupid and soon suss out the weak spots of Nato kit and thinking. That is why they are still there after 10 years of fighting. Sure the armour will take some of the sting out of the blast.

Unfortunately not all of it. Did you ever see a guy killed from blast wave? No outward injuries.

The Syrian government is adopting something like the Nato strategy in trying to hang on in Syria and it is failing. As the Iron Duke said they kept on coming in the same old way and they were defeated in the same old way.

As to armored personnel carriers we should have bought nearer to home.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/120-2048_IMG.JPG

Q. So how does an army occupy and hold hostile territory?
A. With extreme ruthlessness e.g. German occupation of Europe 1940-45.or Rome after the taking of Carthage.

If the ruthlessness element cannot be applied due to political considerations, such as it does not play well on the evening news, then the best thing is not to fight such a war in the first place - the correct political and military decision.

It has cost the Brits and USA thousands of lives as well as god knows how many Afghans. The suffering will go on for a generation or more. And what has been the result?

A cauldron of hate, trillions of wasted dollars and unwanted restrictions on our democratic freedoms all in the name of the great shiboleth of security.

I just hope they put a statue of a squaddie sitting in his wheelchair or standing on his steel legs on the spare plinth in Trafalgar Square. Just so as to show that these guys did not die for nothing but so we never forget not to embark on this kind of stupidity again.

I fear though that as with Vietnam the book will be closed the hard lessons learned forgotten and it will all happen again.