[schurmann]

“Stand by what I read friend and those who were there. ...”

It may unsettle the average civilian gun enthusiast to realize this, but wars are poor places to collect data on system effectiveness.

It’s nice to say “We won World War Two because we built and fielded superior weapons.” It might be true, but we cannot do much with such an assertion. Because it conveys precisely nothing about which weapons were superior or why, and still less about just how much better they were.

Doing the scutwork of finding out what happened, drawing solid conclusions, and attributing results to the right gadgets (and people) are not cheery tasks, nor romantic, nor indeed terribly inspiring.

But they must be done, if we entertain any hopes of taking an accurate read on what happened. Still less pleasant, but perhaps more cogent, are the tasks of predicting what might happen in the future, forecasting the best way to organize/train/equip forces to prevail - or just survive - the next time.

[jmacusa]

I wish I provide a link for you friend on the intell concerning how the Iraqis and their mercenaries were pumped up on dope. Google would probably be a good source. I'm going to check it out. I remember now I read that some time back on FrontPage.com. I can tell you to get yourself a copy of “New Dawn, The Fight For Fallujah’’ by Rich Lowy. This is without a doubt the most hair-raising, bloody and inspiring account of raw combat I've ever read. Fallujah was Saddams power base and it was called ‘’the meanest town in Iraq’’. The battle was billed as ‘’the biggest gang fight in history’’. The Marines, the Army, Navy Seals, Delta Force Commandos , Air Force Air Liaisons(calling in air stikes as well as kicking ass) were in on this.

In the book the author tells of Marines and Army units finding loads of morphine, amphetamines, uppers downers, all kinds of crap. The initial encounters with ex- Iraqi military and Egyptian , Jordanians and Syrians wasn't anywhere near as bad as when our guys began to encounter Chechens. Those bastards fought mean and were skilled. Another great book is "Thunder Run. The Armored Strike To Capture Baghdad'' by David Zucchino. This is another awesome account of the battle. Where "New Dawn'' is all house-to-house, room-to-room and claustrophobic, this is wide-open, free-wheeling, bullets, bombs and RPG rounds going everywhere. This was billed as ''the largest drive by shooting in history''. To give you an example of the Iraqis fighting capability here's an excerpt, (page 14) "The Iraqis seemed to have no training , no discipline, no coordinated tactics. It was all point and shoot. A few soldiers would pop up and fire,then stand out in the open to gauge the effects of their shots. The big rounds from the tanks and Bradleys sent chunks of their bodies splattering into the roadside...''.