It’s going to happen. Both Iraq and the Kurds have been begging us to help them, but I’m afraid they’re out of luck with the Muslim in the WH.
They’ll be bowling in every alley with HEADS.
This is a travesty. And what is George Bush doing during all this? Oil painting? He loves the troops, supports the Vets, and now all they fought for there is going to the dogs.
When I think of all those brave Americans that gave their lives fighting in the Middle-East against Islamo-fascism.....
Great post; great thread. BTTT!
Fuel-Air Rockets Arrive In Iraq
Jul 31, 2014 by Bill Sweetman in Ares
Social media images show that Iraq has acquired a new weapon in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) — the Russian-built TOS-1A multiple launch rocket system. It was reported last year that Russia was supplying such weapons and they appear to have been delivered in recent weeks.
First deployed by Russia against Islamic mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but kept secret until the 1990s, the TOS-1A is unique. Based on a T-72 tank chassis, it carries 24 unguided 220-millimeter rockets with a range of 6 km. Each rocket can carry a 100 kg fuel-air-explosive (thermobaric) warhead and all 24 rockets can be salvoed in 12 seconds, placing 2.4 tonnes of FAE downrange.
The system’s short range, size and lack of guidance make it ineffective in manuever warfare, and FAE is not particularly useful against deployed and widely spread targets. Its original target was most likely Afghan rebels in caves and makeshift bunkers. It was a principal weapon in the battle of Grozny in 1999-2000. Today, it would be used against fortifications and in urban warfare and would be an ideal weapon if one’s military goal was to destroy forces in city tunnels and bunkers — and as long as the devastating injuries that it causes were of no consequence.
FAE has no significant fragmentation effects. A precursor charge disperses the explosive — which may be liquid or slurry — into a cloud that then ignites: the weapon is powerful for its weight because the warhead weight is all fuel, with atmospheric air as the oxidizer. The warhead produces a powerful blast wave with a peak pressure of almost 30 times atmospheric pressure and temperatures as high as 3000 deg. C. The effects propagate through any bunker that is not hermetically sealed.
A U.S. Army report notes that body armor provides little protection against heat and overpressure. Outside the immediate blast zone, where victims are killed instantly, the blast wave is likely to cause internal injuries, particularly in fluid/body interfaces such as the lungs and gut, that cannot be easily diagnosed or stabilized by combat medical personnel.
I was just listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast epic on Ghengis Khan. (His podcasts are must listening for every history buff). The Mongols utterly wiped out Bagdhad. he postulatesit was not until 50 years ago that they recovered. History repeating itself. If you are going to be in the middle of those two rivers, you really should build defenses and know how to fight.