Britain s elite commandos lack the right altitude to take on Al-Qaeda

The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 03/24/2002 | John Barry

[wardaddy]

Any altitude above say 2000 meters is a bitch to slog in even if in top shape...much less have your ticker overworking while enduring combat. We need a Bolivian battalion from Lake Titicaca.....cheeks bulging with coca....LOL.....it takes time. Bogota or Quito used to take weeks for me to settle in....and I still dropped weight like crazy since my metabolism was so revved up.

We need a training facility in the high tundra of Alaska obviously. But even with all that ...very very few folks are really capable of serious prolonged exposure above 3500 meters. Maybe some Tibetans or Peruvians or Bolivians or Nepalese. I think I read where there are Bolivians that live at 17,500 feet or so....that's damn high...I live at about 1000 feet or 800 feet above downtown Nashville. When I go to our mountain house in NC at 4800 feet, I can feel it a little. I remember as a kid in Quito at around 10,000 feet that ciggies would go out on their own in an ash tray...that tells you something. You almost have to be born into it. I spent a few weeks in the Sierra Nevada (NE Colombia)at nearly 5000 meters..(the peak at around 20K feet is the largest relative elevation rise in the world going to about 20K from sea level on the Caribbean in 30 miles. Anyhow, I got sick...and once you get sick...you're more prone to it in the future.

Just my 2 bits....it's a ruff ruff environ to fight and carry all that gear in. Adrenaline skin poppers and beta blockers will help....aspirin too.

Regards

[Travis McGee]

We need a Bolivian battalion from Lake Titicaca.....cheeks bulging with coca....

Maybe Presidente Jorge W. Arbusto is recruiting down south?

[wardaddy]

All we need is a heated soccer match between the Bolivianos and say some Chechnyans and Kosovars and Bosnians and whatever left over Arab or Afghan diehards are left up there....a few questionable calls....and hell..the Bolivians will be begging us to airlift their little army over there to fight...for soccer honour...they've done it before. LOL...

[Travis McGee]

I've heard those Indios can hump a rucksack up and down mountains all day and night like nobody's business, as long as they get their ration of coca leaves.

Actually, one of the great "untold lessons" of how to fight terrorism was learned in the Andes, where Fujimori armed the peasants, forming local militias. After that, the Senderos couldn't roam at will, camping out in villages at gunpoint. Once they were forced to avoid villages, it was over.

[Squantos]

A trick we used when we were going high was to wear our M-17's /MCU2P's on our morning 6 mile dirt shuffles. Not sure if it helped but we never had a problem that I can remember when we aclimated in such a manner about 60 days prior to deployment. But then we were stationed at 6500 feet MSL also thus it was no great leap per se.......

Stay Safe !

[wardaddy]

Those Senderos were (are) the Chechnyans of the west....Fujimora deserved a medal....you know though.. we were there too.....off the record of course...now Guzman is rotting in prison forever...good damn riddance. I think he's quite ill...I got croc tears falling all over my keyboard. I know folks in Miraflores (posher part of Lima) that would have killed Guzman themselves if given the chance. I used to go to Peru on ship business....pesca de arena....fish meal. Damn dry along the coast. It was a little hairy but nothing like West Africa or the Pacific coast of C-bo or Nica when our boys were close by giving the Sandies fits. Not a place I'd recommend really unless you want to do the Machu Pichu thing. You had to buy bunkers from the Peruvian Navy...always watered down too...and always lightered at sea...that was hairy.

[Travis McGee]

It also takes screening as well as getting acclimated, I think a pretty fair % of troops just get sick and can't hack it no matter what, they need to be found out before sending them into high altitude combat, or you will just have that many more built in casualties.

(For the record, if I can't smell salt water, I don't want to go.)

[wardaddy]

I forgot.....din't you love it when the Peruvian spec ops guys (again with our unofficial help) stormed the Japanese embassy during the hostage crisis. Then they disposed of all the terrs including the chick terrs.....and only lost I think one hostage and one good guy. Damn fine work for a third world bunch. Made me proud. No Island paradise detention centers for those Terrs...LOL. The average Peruano is sick of the Senderos and the Tupac????whatever they are called Amaru???

[Travis McGee]

The Jap Embassy op was one of the classics of all time.

/1/ Great media/psyop coutnermeasures.

/2/ Smuggled a micro 2 way radio in to a Naval officer hostage who reported on hte terrorists.

/3/ Tunneling, undiscovered for weeks.

/4/ Complex coordinated attack like clockwork, kicked off with a HE blast under the floor where most of the terrorists were playing their daily indoor futbol match.

/5/ Zero surviving terrorists. Imagine that.

Anybody who underestimates these folks is an idiot.

[Squantos]

Hypoxia is usually defeated & treated with Acetazolamide if I remember my Rx kit contents. Your right though, even the best of athletes fell victim to AMS even without a 120 pound ruck.

Stay Safe ..........

[Travis McGee]

Count me out. If I can't see the ocean, I'm not going.

[Travis McGee]

Gotta rack out. Up till 0400 last night, on a roll writing.

Saw a sneak preview of "The Rookie" tonight with the kids, set in flat scrubland West Texas. Bleak and forlorn looking place!

[Squantos]

Yeah all my oceans are wheat, cotton, rye, sorgum and cattle.........Barret M82A1M country...........:o) Biggest damn Prairie Dogs ya ever did see .........

Stay safe.

[lepton]

( could it just be that the British military wants to participate in a more meaningful way than 'peacekeeping' around Kabul?)

This was my first thought...with perhaps an opportunity to have them "blooded" thrown in.

[Traitain]

"Even some common sense: are Americans, in some way, physiologically different from Britons? Are our mountains bigger than theirs? Is there any rational reason to suppose that our boys will be fleeter at 12,000ft than theirs? The answers are no, no and no."

When I first heard about the news that they were going to send in the Royal Marines that was the first thing I thought too. I really fail to see the differece between a British trooper and an American one. Perhaps it's got something to do with too many American body bags being transported home?

Traitain

[Traitain]

This man really is talking sense I couldn't agree more.

Traitain

[Stultis]

I keep wondering, if they want mountain troops, why don't they bring in the Gurkhas?

And how about the Turks? They whupped the Kurds fighting in mountainous terrain.

[Stultis]

A bn of Marines are in pakistan training with pki marines.

Where did you hear this? Do you suppose there might be joint Paki/U.S. actions in the Paki "Tribal Territories" (where a bunch of the Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, conceivably including Bin Laden, are probably hiding out)?

If Musharref wants to control events in Pakistan he is going to have to deal with the problem of the tribal territories. Of course Pakistan has never controlled that region before, and it will be damned tough and costly to assert that control now...

[Stultis]

Musarraf, in Pakistan, will be assassinated and we will eventually wind up fighting serious battles in Pakistan.

I Don't agree. If Musharraf gets it the military will just put up another general to take over. The military isn't going to let anyone who is not one of "them" take control for the foreseeable future. They will fight the fundies outright if necessary (but only if necessary) to maintain their authority. Despite what you may hear the Isamists do NOT have sufficient popular support in Pakistan (at least outside of the Tribal Territories) to stand up to the military.

[wardaddy]

BTTT....but didn't the Peruvian moderates and others subsequently go after the Internal Security head....Montero(??) and accuse him of being in bed with the Coca-boys? I think he ran off to Venezuela where that idiot Chavez (another nutcase just asking for a bullet at some point) put him under "house arrest". "Democracies" often come to despise the very folks who saved them once the dirty work is done. Troubling.