Why Can't We Do a Better Job of Stopping the Bleeding?

Vanity

[yetidog]

I am a vet, but admittedly clueless with respect to today's military tactics and strategies. So does anyone have any comment regarding our evident inability to consitently protect our helicopters from rocket propelled grenades and ground personnel from roadside suicide bombers amd IED's? In the former case, should not additional armour, electronic jamming devices etc. be developed? And in the case of the IED's, what about the Predator survellience and sniper teams? And how in the world can suicide bombers consistently get close enough to massed numbers of Iraqi army and police groups to cause the casulties that they do? These are some questions that I would like to see the media adddress. The Dems and the MSM exploit these attacks to criticize the administration in the hope of turning public opinion away from the war. As a member of that public, I desprately want America to prevail, but I do want some insight into what can and is being done to defend against what seems to be the rather consistent mainstays of terrorist actions in Traq and Afganistan. Any insights?

[Vetvoice]

Gee Doc, what does a suicide bomber look like before he blows him/her self up?

[dirtboy]

So does anyone have any comment regarding our evident inability to consitently protect our helicopters from rocket propelled grenades and ground personnel from roadside suicide bombers amd IED's?

Well, you see, there is this little problem. Our enemies don't cooperate by sticking to the same tactics as we try to counter them, but instead change their tactics as we change ours.

Downright rude of them, if you ask me.

[darkwing104]

First of all RPG are non-guided weapons so they cannot be jammed or fooled by counter-measure systems. Just lik a bullet, it depends on the shooter's skill to hit a target.

A good idea is to have a Predator Aircraft leading the Helicopter as a "Threat Warning" aid. Threat Warning analysts can tip off the Helicopter of an impending threat. Terrorist cannot hide to well from infrared cameras. The Predators are capable of carrying Hellfires to pick off terrorist before they can fire at friendly forces.

Just an idea

[sauropod]

There is a lot going on wrt protecting from IEDs, RPGs and the like.

It is really hard to stop someone that loads up explosives in vehicles like ambulances and targets the response team after a first explosion has happened.

Give our guys some credit.

[Oberon]

You solve that problem, bud, and you can take your place in the history books next to Clausewitz and Sun-Tzu. The truth is, nobody has ever figured out how to successfully deal with a determined, distributed resistance, short of all-out nuclear war...and that hasn't been tested, so the jury's still out.

Guerillas with small arms are notoriously hard to stop.

[Alberta's Child]

I understand your concerns, but the reality here is that there's no way in hell to effectively guard against attacks like these without putting the entire country on lock-down.

The "lack of armor" complaint we often hear is a legitimate one on its face, but you have to remember two things: 1) armor isn't 100% effective, and 2) you can't just add armor to any vehicle that isn't designed to carry that kind of enormous weight.

[Yo-Yo]

RPGs are unguided, therefore cannot be electronically jammed. Armor is very heavy, and enough armor to protect a helicopter from an RPG would make it much too heavy to fly, let alone be capable of lifting a meaningful payload of troops and equipment. Even M1 tanks are vulnerable to some RPGs, because RPGs were designed to defeat armor.

As for IEDs and suicide bombers, unless these people start to wear "where's Waldo" style red and white beanies, Predator drones will not be able to pick them apart from the other 26 million Iraqis.

If we cannot keep our own cops and civilians completely safe from gang violence, how do you expect to stop small groups of terrorists? Britain tried for years with the IRA, and Israel is still trying with the Palestinians.

The fundamental problem is that we won't leave until they stop bombing, and they won't stop bombing until we leave. Catch 22.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

I will answer your question when you tell me why IT people can't stop 100% of hacker and virus attacks.

[The Phantom FReeper]

New systems allowing the protection of our military personnel and vehicles are constantly being developed. Unfortunately, R & D takes some time. It's very easy for you to say "Well, why don't we do this?" It's much more difficult and time-consuming to actually get the job done.

As for the suicide attacks, it's not always easy to guard oneself against an enemy that hides among innocent women and children.

However, considering our fatalities and casualties in the WOT have been much lower than in previous wars, I'd say that we are doing relatively well.

[rwa265]

"Any Insights."

Here are two from http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/world/story/60E4F2B3A529215786257031000F31CF?OpenDocument

Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, a top U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said the insurgency continued to evolve.

"The enemy we are fighting is a learning enemy and reacts to what we do just as we react to what they do if they change tactics," he said. "It is a continuous cycle of action, reaction, counteraction and counter-counteraction."

U.S. Brig. Gen. Donald Alston said there were 15,000 to 20,000 insurgents.

"They've gone to more spectacular systems that can inflict more casualties per attack," said Alston, who added that the shift might be because insurgents can't sustain large ground attacks.

[darkwing104]

The IED problem is being handled by jamming Cellphone Frequencies. It seems that the Terrorist remote detonator of choice is a cell phone.

Suicide bombers are the ultimate wild card, this is where we need to learn from the Israelis. They are not 100% successful but they has been effective in reducing the number of attacks.

[Yo-Yo]

It seems that the Terrorist remote detonator of choice is a cell phone.

Car alarms and garage door openers are also very popular and much easier to hack than cell phones.

Chirp chirp BOOM!

[Coop]

I am a vet, but admittedly clueless with respect to today's military tactics and strategies.

I'm a veteran, and I agree.

[MikefromOhio]

first of all, this really isn't the best place to air this topic...

As for countermeasures, they are working through them. The terrorists in Iraq use anything from remote controlled TOYS to the timers on washers or dryers. You can't jam the latter and the former has many different frequency ranges.

Armor can only protect you so much.

As for RPGs and our Helicopters, well everything the blind squirrel will find a nut. That sucks, but when you shoot 1000 RPGs, eventually you will hit with one of them.

In my year over in Iraq, by my count, there were nearly 300 attacks and nearly 500 rockets/mortars and missles thrown at my base. I had 5 or 6 hit relatively close (within 300 meters) and the closest one hit about 60 feet away from me. it was ALWAYS blind luck by whoever was shooting.

[Nathan Zachary]

Sure we can stop them all. Just quarantine the entire nation of 30 million people and put them in a giant tent city labor camp. But then there's the problem of feeding them all, watching every square mile of border for terrorists sneaking in from other countries,...

No amount of predators aircraft, border patrols, etc can stop those who want to kill and maim. Unless we "sterilize" the entire country. (nuke it) The best we can do in build up a strong government, and build up their own police and army so they can take care of themselves.

What you are asking is something that is impossible to do, even in America. How many murders, robberies, assaults rapes, and other crimes go on every single day in the USA, or any other country for that matter?
In Chicago, there were over 20 murders in less than 20 hours at one point last week. Across America, HUNDREDS are murdered a week. Iraq is no worse, they use different methods is all, plus the media blows everything out of proportion, it's part of their anti- Bush campaign. Perhaps they should focus on problems here at home, the murders, maiming that go on in blue states, the drug abuse problems, the high crime rate resulting from it.
No, things aren't that bad in Iraq, in fact, in some respects it's BETTER there than here.

[Blzbba]

Actually in Iraq, our boys are having success using jamming devices to impeded the usage of IEDs (where some insurgent uses a remote-located cell phone or RC device to detonate an unmanned explosive).

That's why we're seeing so many suicide car bombings lately - a change in tactics resulting from remote-controlled IED failures.

[Alberta's Child]

The IED problem is being handled by jamming Cellphone Frequencies. It seems that the Terrorist remote detonator of choice is a cell phone.

Actually, this is a good illustration of just how flexible the enemy is in Iraq. One of the more disturbing developments that the military is dealing with in Iraq is that they're finding more and more IEDs that are being detonated by infra-red transmissions, which are much more difficult to detect because they aren't "broadcast" like a radio or cell phone signal.

[yetidog]

Thanks for the insight. My post was in no way critical of our military, although it is evident that more than a few responders took it that way. Nor was my post intended to solicit replies to a questions that should not be asked in the first place on the board. I asked my questions from the perspective of "unenlightened frustration"....a condition I believe to be a somewhat common American malady with respect to Iraq and Afganistan. My other point was that I would prefer that the media give us a few more stories regarding the nature of difficulites encountered as opposed to interpreting the consequences of those difficulties (ie. "quagmires."). Americans to this point seem to have not been given enough good stories from Iraq nor stories that accurately describe why things happen as they do.

[MikefromOhio]

well the blogosphere and places like FR are more or less a creation that come out of the negativity and one sidedness of the MSM....