Posted on 11/24/2015 10:56:16 AM PST by xzins
The U.S. military conducted a second wave of attacks on (parked) ISIS oil tankers in Syria on Sunday, Nov. 22, but the attack fell short of its goal:
"The goal was to destroy every truck there. They ran out of ammunition before they were able to do that. But the desire was to destroy every single truck there," said Army Col. Steven Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led coaltion fighting ISIS.
At a news briefing on Tuesday, Warren played video of the ISIS fuel tankers being bombed or shot with machine gun fire from the air. Warren said all the trucks were targeted, but the video just shows "the good shots that you'd like."
As was the case with an earlier U.S. strike on ISIS fuel tankers, the Americans dropped leaflets warning the truck drivers that an attack was coming, so the tankers were not moving.
Warren called the airstrikes "another example of the type of accuracy that we're capable of here in the coalition."
A total of 283 fuel trucks were destroyed by American planes on Sunday: "A bomb would have been from an A-10, and then when you saw the guns, you know, the machine gun fire, that could either have been an A-10 or AC-130 Spectre Gunship."
"It's not a movie where you kind of fly along and just strafe, and you know, the trucks blow up. No, it's -- they struck each truck, or groups of two or three trucks. It is a machine gun, so there is a certain area aspect to it, right? You know, the gunfire isn't laser guided...So it's individual strike a truck, or two or three trucks; move to the next batch, strike them; move, strike; move, strike.
"So the goal was to destroy every truck there. They ran out of ammunition before they were able to do that. But the desire was to destroy every single truck there."
Combined with an earlier U.S. strike on ISIS fuel tankers, the U.S. military has now destroyed 399 of them, but Warren would not say how many are left: "I'm not going to tell you the total number of trucks out there...but we've still got a long way to go on trucks," he said.
Warren also disputed Russia's recent claim that it had attacked and destroyed 500 ISIS fuel tankers in the "same general region" last week.
"From what we saw, the battle damage assessment they issued seemed to be exaggerated. More than likely the Russian attacks did not produce the results that they claimed it produced."
Warren said the U.S. estimates that Russia destroyed only around 100 tankers.
I can think of absolutely no good reason why the US Command would be announcing such a thing about an on-going operation.
HAVE YOU DONATED TO THE FREEPATHON? https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/
I can think of absolutely no good reason why the US Command would be announcing such a thing about an on-going operation.
Because the Russians bombed fleets of parked tankers all in a neat row and people started to ask questions why this was not done in 2 years of Obama bombing ISIS and they are scrambling for excuses.
It makes no sense to say we ran out of ammunition.
How does that make us look better than the Russians?
Those leaflets are going to get somebody shot down.
It does not make America look better than the Russians - its an excuse to explain why the Obama bombing campaign produced no results in almost 2 years.
The dog ate my homework.
Yep.
“Look Ahmed, must be the stoooopid americans. They are dropping leaflets.”
Huh? They used to have extra ammo pods and napalm in the day.. And know how to use them .. Effectively.
...”But the desire was to destroy every truck there”.....
It’s the thought that counts.
I say orders from Obama.
Why don’t they destroy the fuel source?
Something doesn’t add up.
Mission Brief:
“We have tankers at Highway Xray and Foxtrot intersection. Intel says there are 250 fuel trucks. We’ll have a sortie of 5 and we want each of you to take 30 rounds. Obama’s orders.”
When they start whining to the UN about how they don't have any water tankers to take water to poor little Ahmed's village, then it is beginning to hurt them.
283 tankers destroyed is still pretty impressive. Would like to know how many A-10s were involved, and how many sorties, which would give a good indication of how much ammo was expended per truck. There is such a thing as running out of ammo before targets, even for the A-10.
I recall pretty vividly the images of the “Highway of Death” during the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait, which was a maximum effort by several squadrons, using area weapons (cluster munitions) rather than the en vogue GBUs. In addition to guns.
I believe it was mentioned in that Benghazi video.
How much weight did the leaflets that were dropped take up?
But do you announce: “We ran out of ammo????”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.