Battle of COP Keating

Tom Ricks has an account by GEN (ret) Barry McCaffrey of the latest outpost battle in Afghanistan, causing eight American deaths. It's a gripping verbal account.

Things were relatively quiet when I came on shift at 0600. Not too long afterward, I heard a call sign describing taking small arms fire at his position. (That in itself is not alarming - I hear that frequently because I hear satellite radio transmissions from all sorts of units who operate in Nangahar, Kunar, Laghman (where I am) and in Nuristan Provinces, where this happened.) The situation, then began to deteriorate. The Troop Commander - urgently - requested rotary wing gunships to support him. He was told they were 45 minutes away, and that he should use his 120 mm mortars. He replied that the mortar pit was pinned down, and that the could not employ his 120 mm mortars. I did not know until I saw an aerial photo later that day, after I got off shift, that the COP was located in a "bowl," surrounded on nearly all sides by high ground. The insurgents were shooting down into the mortar pit from above. The 120 mm mortars from OP Fritshe, a few kilometers away were able to help a little, but it was not enough. Not too long after the fight started, the Troop Commander said that he had a KIA, and several wounded.

A few of the commenters wonder why the Army continues to position its outposts inside of valleys, next to villages, where they become easily surrounded and shot at from higher positions. It's as if they forgot about Vietnam's Dien Bien Phu and the Civil War battle at Harper's Ferry. "Population-centric COIN" is a good concept, but being tactically secure is better. I am not sure that we need more troops in Afghanistan, we just have to use them smarter.

Comments

[Ray]

Remember we were talking about not keeping the high ground some time ago?

[Andy]

The problem is the terrain. You either put your COP on the ridgeline 1-3k vertical meters up, or you put it in the valley floor. There actually is a COP up on the ridgeline above Kamdesh. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. The best terrain in Nuristan is already occupied by villages so there aren't a lot of options.

BTW, COP Kamdesh was abandoned a couple of days ago.

[NVH]

Except pull back and defend what you have. These Afghans are not worth the blood and treasure, and while J's other post indicates Taliban control 80% of the country, 80% of what country? They can grow all the heroin they want, if we've got something around the pop centers and build it, they will come, you can sustain a nice COIN strat / operation, training ground for our troops, and a nice terrorist snipe operation without doing stupid stuff like putting a platoon on the valley floor in a place guys have been moutain fighting in for 40 years. Once Obama pushes thru the legalization of pot, cocaine, and heroin, there goes the 80% of the country the Taliban have, solves our economic problems, and we can afford to open that front in Iran...case closed

[Ray]

Just dealing with this issue, remembering what the situation was then; the Taliban were on the high ground - why couldn't "we" be? I don't think that COP holds much credence; it's not applicable to give the high ground away. Difficult? Again the Taliban didn't think so. NVH and Andy; if the problem is the terrain, the Taliban are dealing with it. Don't support the equipment or the disorganisation; the Taliban can do it, and they're not as well equipped. I hate sitting pontificating in an easy chair when the guys lives are on the line, but I am very puzzled indeed that a fundamental principle has again brought deaths and injuries. If I am wrong, someone out there in the ether can explain to me why high ground is obtainable to the Taliban and not to the troops. Whay geyts in the way, and if so, why can't it be addressed.

[Peter Hodge]

Good post, J.

I've just read Churchill's "The Story of the Malakand Field Force". In 1897 the British posts at the Malakand Pass (the key route into the Swat Valley, Bajaur and Chitral) were sited at the bottom of what Churchill described as "a great cup, of which the rim is broken into numerous clefts and jagged points".

He went onto say that "the whole position is therefore, from the military point of view, bad and indefensible".

Needless to say, when the camps were attacked in sustained assaults by Pashtun tribesmen, the British were hard pressed to repel the attacks, and were only able to do so after large reinforcements arrived.

[Ray]

I must read that Churchill book. Also, Peter, some good relevance; read John Masters' "Bugles and a Tiger" for real accounts of vivid fights with Afghans and Pathans and their attitudes about war. Eerie when you read that in the 1930's they were using home-made bombs and grenades adapted as such, on roadsides. I stray a bit from the above subject, about high ground a bit here, but I also should mention to complete the Masters' autobiographical accounts, his "The Road Past Mandalay" which also has graphic detail and comments about real characters, organisation, and reactions to war. The parts about Americans is moving and factual. Those Dakota pilots are my heroes...but then the Dakota was a great aircraft-if a little noisy, but this was l956, after Masters time...deafening noise of the engines, and my face blackened with that evil-smelling waxy stuff and butterflies in my stomach and a bravado grin hiding my fear... These books are in my evergreen section. Boy, I am glad I don't have to fight. I can theorise and learn something about other's views, from you fellows, though. For which I am grateful.

[Peter Hodge]

Thanks for the recommendation Ray.

I remember reading Masters' "Bhowani Junction". Will have to read "Bugles and a Tiger" and perhaps some more of his novels.