Posted on 03/08/2014 9:11:36 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
If former CIA Director David Petraeus and his ex-deputy Michael Morell are recalled to testify on Benghazi, they can expect hard questions about the mortar attack on the CIA annex which killed two former Navy SEALs.
Republican Mike Rogers, chairman of the powerful House Intelligence Committee, is weighing whether to recall one or both of those officials over their Benghazi congressional testimony.
Rogers said the evidence suggests a highly skilled team carried out the mortar strike. Fox News has confirmed five rounds were fired in under a minute, with three hitting the annex roof -- a target roughly the size of two convenience stores.
When pressed on the sophistication of the mortar attack, two sources familiar with Petraeus' statements to Congress said he also seemed to downplay the necessary planning and skill, stating the mortars could have been fired from the back of a truck with the same accuracy.
None of the five military officers contacted by Fox News said the truck explanation was plausible.
"A truck would not permit you that stable platform necessary to make that fine adjustment from Point A to Point B to put the rounds down," Tony Shaffer, senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research, said. "Because every time you fire, the truck shakes. That's not adequate for any type of direct fire.
Others take a more skeptical view. "It just sounds to me like General Petraeus was trying to do a favor for the administration. I just can't see any way around it because he's an infantry man, he knows you can't do it," Peters said.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Once again, there is not one person who will speak the truth about this administration. If high ranking military and cabinet members are being blackmailed, that means only Edward Snowden felt the American people needed to know about it.
The only other reason is everyone who works for obama, all the way down the the G1 level, have looked into the eyes of evil and are scared to death.
Carter Hamm was the name of the General told to stand down by the WH
Blueunicorn6, you have it exactly correct! The three legs of effective mortar fire is, Gun Line, Fire Direction Control and Forward Observer.
I believe this was pre-planned and obviously incorporated all the tenants of a professional indirect fire team.
A great question would be: Did they have a Fire Support Coordination Cell which would imply that it was a battalion sized supported operation? You can bet that someone has the communications, at minimum, from the FO to FDC or Gun Line.
Noob1999, a mortar system is really a fairly technical piece of equipment. There are a couple of methods of engagements that we utilize for mortars. Hand-Held: Only the 60mm, M224 Mortar, is capable of firing hand held utilizing the M-9 base plate. Normally this is in the assault mode and it requires a lot of experience to gain real proficiency.
All other mortars utilize a much larger base plate. First rounds are rarely on target since the initial round seats the baseplate deep into the soil. This allows for the stability of the weapons system.
Corrections are given by a Forward Observer and his position is plotted by the Fire Direction Control center. When the FO announces a correction of Add,Drop, Left and Right it is computed mathematically by the FDC and transmitted to the mortar Gunline as Deflection and Elevation changes.
The Mortar sight is calibrated into 6400 Mills. Once the data, deflection and Elevation, is placed on the sight; the sight is realigned to a fixed point, aiming Stakes, to the rear or front of the Mortar tube, and the mortar is then ready to fire.
Each subsequent command requires the same steps IOT ensure accuracy. The 60, 81 and 120mm mortar systems are the most difficult weapons in a Infantry Battalion to gain mastery of.
I hope I did not make this overly complicated but firing from a moving platform will not work and you can bet that is not the way these guys fired their Mortars. It’s hard firing a 81mm from a LAV and impossible from a pickup truck more than once!
Friendly fire by the U.S.? Is that what the secrecy over Benghazi is all about?
I don’t think so. I think they would have confessed that. It is my belief that President Obama gave up or surrendered at Benghazi. That is why there was no military response. I believe that there were ongoing negotiations that night. I believe that the conditions accepted by President Obama are so damning that the release of them would end the Democrat party. That is why none of the people at the annex will be allowed to speak. Even the Republicans are afraid of the results of the country knowing about what went on in Libya. Not because they were involved, but because of the bedlam it might release. Me, I kind of like bedlam.
Yep. The scary part is thinking about who has that capability and who doesn’t.
These people are all nutz including Schaffer. The whole idea of a small mortar, say 60 mm, is to fire and scoot. With a decent sight it can hit a swimming pool repeatedly, in a truck or rickshaw or on a mule, every thirty seconds or so. The real test however is what kind of wounds actually killed the guys on the roof. The second test is whether or not the rounds contacted the roof or hit something like a person on the way down. If the rounds hit the roof then there should be a hole in the roof to match. In none of the pics of the building has any roof holes been evident. Until we see actualy physical evidence the rest is all hokum upon which I threw the BS flag long ago.
One m.
General Carter Ham (ret), former Commander, AFRICOM
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/generalham/index?tab=articles
Thanks GE. Have friends that spell with two and just couldn’t remember how he spelled or even if I had the right guy —— much appreciated!
In Vietnam, one mortar round blew up the massive US ammo storage area at Long Binh. Everyone saw the explosion on television at that time.
The secret behind a one-shot direct hit is that the architectual planner of the ammo buildings was a North Vietnamese/VC officer who built in somekind of weak spot on the roof.
As I was told while in VN, the VC/NVA would sit and case a base for weeks or months before hitting it, as they did to Firebase Oasis (Oct. 20, 1970), the day I arrived in SVN.
Benghazi was “injun territory” so the jihadists knew the area like the back of there hand.
Looks like Petraeus did “betray us”, just at a later time. How low the mighty have fallen.
Time to recall him and Morell and grill the shit out of them. Finding the general in contempt of congress would totally destroy his image. As for the CIA guy, don’t know him but don’t trust him. Don’t trust anyone in the upper echelons of the CIA today. In the old days, I would.
That is the shame of the Obama regime and even the Clinton administrations. People you once could trust with your life are now covering up for inexcusable errors and decisions (Manat, OP Keating, etc).
A lot of my friends were “spooks” from the OSS to CIA to Police Intelligence. Today, I wouldn’t know who to trust.
How low America has been brought down in just a few years.
......................I hope I did not make this overly complicated but firing from a moving platform will not work and you can bet that is not the way these guys fired their Mortars. Its hard firing a 81mm from a LAV and impossible from a pickup truck more than once!..............
Thanks Gunner! I had thought that it was possible to fire a mortar from a non-moving heavy duty truck and calculate the common sprung recoil into the calculations.
When I see mortars deployed on TV, I say WTF, how did they fire that thing, holding onto it while it kinda waves around to an unseen target before the mortar lights off, as I knew that a small, very small deviation could create chaos at the other end!
Kind’a like Jason Duffner waggling his club before striking the golf ball, landing two feet from the pin - from 180 yards out!
Thanks for enlightening me, and I sure hope that you came home safe and sound! Thank you!
Noob
General Carter Ham- Commander of Africom during Benghazi attacks was “coincidentally” relieved of duty right after the Benghazi attacks.
Thanks that’s the guy I was trying to remember
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