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Първоначално публикуван от faster
Преглед на мнение
AHMAD SHAH'S FORCE SIZE
Initial intel, prior to the launch of Red Wings, put Shah's force at up to twenty ACM. This intel came not from one source, nor one type of source, but from multiple, cross referenced sources. Furthermore, the small villages of the Korangal Valley / Sawtalo Sar / Shuryek Valley region--throughout the mountains of the Kunar, for that matter--cannot sustain numbers larger than twenty for very long; it is a logistical impossibility. The locals there can barely subsist, much less feed and house a small army.
Among Shah's group were two men who each carried, in addition to a weapon, a video camera. Two videos of the ambush were made--one that was used as a propaganda video, showing footage of the ambush and then the weapons and gear pillaged from the SEALs, and another that was never released, or at least not broadly released (not on the internet, at least that I know of). I was able to get the second video; both were authenticated by the military--even without that nod, their authenticity is obvious.
Number of men under his command represents the "currency" of the insurgent or terrorist--the more fighters, the "wealthier" the commander, especially if evidence of these numbers are distributed on the internet and other media. Osama bin Laden was known to hire 'extras' for videos produced of him milling about to project that he maintained direct control over a much larger personal force than he actually did. While none of the fighters on Shah's videos were ever considered 'extras'--it was an actual ambush--the highest number of men that can be counted at any one time (including videographers) is six. There was a reason Ahmad Shah had not one, but two videographers with him, and that reason was to show his "wealth" as a terrorist, to ensure that all in his team were documented doing what they did. But even without the videos, the military established the number at 8 to 10--based on analysis of a type of signals intelligence gathering during and immediately after the ambush, as well as human intelligence gathered in Pakistan. I don't discuss in detail this intel, because it is sensitive (the way the signals intelligence was gathered), and also, with regard to the human intelligence gathered in Pakistan, the collections involved special operations units.
The number in Shah's group seems to be a big issue with some individuals. I think that the narrative of a four-man Navy SEAL team being deployed to take on a group of hundreds under the leadership of the right-hand man of the world's most wanted individual has all the makings of an edge-of-your-seat military action thriller. But it doesn't happen in reality. And it certainly wasn't the case in Red Wings.
Regardless of number of men, Shah and his fighters had the SEALs surrounded (by up to 180 degrees), and fired at them from superior (higher elevation) positions with weapons of heavier caliber than the SEALs' .223 (5.56mm) caliber weapons. Shah himself fired at them with a PK medium machine gun, which fires a 7.62 x 54mm round. The PK is loosely comparable to the M240, the medium machine gun used by U.S. Marine infantry that fires a 7.62 x 51mm round (it replaced the M60 machine gun). Shah also had at least one RPG gunner, a number of men firing AK47s (7.62 x 39mm round), and possibly an 82mm mortar operator. The 82mm mortar HE round (high explosive) alone can wipe out a team much larger than four men, even if they are somewhat dispersed. I had the unfortunate experience in the spring of 2009, while at a forward operating base that sits up against the Pakistani border in the Kunar, to come under 82mm mortar attack. Thankfully, none of the rounds landed closer than 150 meters to any personnel. I took a look at one of the impact craters after the attack, and was surprised by how large a radius of destruction that an individual 82mm mortar round caused.
The only surviving member of the four-man team, Marcus Luttrell, wrote a brief (2 1/2 page) after action report. In it, he stated that he estimated that the reconnaissance and surveillance team was ambushed by 20 to 35 ACM. Twenty was the number that was initially released by CJTF-76 Public Affairs, and that is why the earliest media reports used the number twenty (in the Time magazine article, they state "...probably 5 to 1" as related to the four-man team - meaning 20). Further analysis, the results of which never made it into the press (derived from analysis of signals intelligence gleaned during the ambush and human intelligence derived in Pakistan after the ambush, and videos of the actual ambush) stated the number to be between eight and ten.
But as time progressed, the number quickly inflated from twenty. Some sources state up to 200. I've seen figures even higher than this. Ever since a blunt education by Marines in Afghanistan on the subject, I've been ever-skeptical of stated enemy numbers. While I was in Afghanistan on my first embed, the Marines taught me about "Afghan Math" - "Just divide by about ten to get the real number " is the governing directive of "Afghan Math"--when reading enemy numbers in press reports or when the enemy tries their brand of PsyOps over two-way radios ("we have fifty men waiting to ambush you" usually means, maybe, five).
Initial intel, prior to the launch of Red Wings, put Shah's force at up to twenty ACM. This intel came not from one source, nor one type of source, but from multiple, cross referenced sources. Furthermore, the small villages of the Korangal Valley / Sawtalo Sar / Shuryek Valley region--throughout the mountains of the Kunar, for that matter--cannot sustain numbers larger than twenty for very long; it is a logistical impossibility. The locals there can barely subsist, much less feed and house a small army.
Among Shah's group were two men who each carried, in addition to a weapon, a video camera. Two videos of the ambush were made--one that was used as a propaganda video, showing footage of the ambush and then the weapons and gear pillaged from the SEALs, and another that was never released, or at least not broadly released (not on the internet, at least that I know of). I was able to get the second video; both were authenticated by the military--even without that nod, their authenticity is obvious.
Number of men under his command represents the "currency" of the insurgent or terrorist--the more fighters, the "wealthier" the commander, especially if evidence of these numbers are distributed on the internet and other media. Osama bin Laden was known to hire 'extras' for videos produced of him milling about to project that he maintained direct control over a much larger personal force than he actually did. While none of the fighters on Shah's videos were ever considered 'extras'--it was an actual ambush--the highest number of men that can be counted at any one time (including videographers) is six. There was a reason Ahmad Shah had not one, but two videographers with him, and that reason was to show his "wealth" as a terrorist, to ensure that all in his team were documented doing what they did. But even without the videos, the military established the number at 8 to 10--based on analysis of a type of signals intelligence gathering during and immediately after the ambush, as well as human intelligence gathered in Pakistan. I don't discuss in detail this intel, because it is sensitive (the way the signals intelligence was gathered), and also, with regard to the human intelligence gathered in Pakistan, the collections involved special operations units.
The number in Shah's group seems to be a big issue with some individuals. I think that the narrative of a four-man Navy SEAL team being deployed to take on a group of hundreds under the leadership of the right-hand man of the world's most wanted individual has all the makings of an edge-of-your-seat military action thriller. But it doesn't happen in reality. And it certainly wasn't the case in Red Wings.
Regardless of number of men, Shah and his fighters had the SEALs surrounded (by up to 180 degrees), and fired at them from superior (higher elevation) positions with weapons of heavier caliber than the SEALs' .223 (5.56mm) caliber weapons. Shah himself fired at them with a PK medium machine gun, which fires a 7.62 x 54mm round. The PK is loosely comparable to the M240, the medium machine gun used by U.S. Marine infantry that fires a 7.62 x 51mm round (it replaced the M60 machine gun). Shah also had at least one RPG gunner, a number of men firing AK47s (7.62 x 39mm round), and possibly an 82mm mortar operator. The 82mm mortar HE round (high explosive) alone can wipe out a team much larger than four men, even if they are somewhat dispersed. I had the unfortunate experience in the spring of 2009, while at a forward operating base that sits up against the Pakistani border in the Kunar, to come under 82mm mortar attack. Thankfully, none of the rounds landed closer than 150 meters to any personnel. I took a look at one of the impact craters after the attack, and was surprised by how large a radius of destruction that an individual 82mm mortar round caused.
The only surviving member of the four-man team, Marcus Luttrell, wrote a brief (2 1/2 page) after action report. In it, he stated that he estimated that the reconnaissance and surveillance team was ambushed by 20 to 35 ACM. Twenty was the number that was initially released by CJTF-76 Public Affairs, and that is why the earliest media reports used the number twenty (in the Time magazine article, they state "...probably 5 to 1" as related to the four-man team - meaning 20). Further analysis, the results of which never made it into the press (derived from analysis of signals intelligence gleaned during the ambush and human intelligence derived in Pakistan after the ambush, and videos of the actual ambush) stated the number to be between eight and ten.
But as time progressed, the number quickly inflated from twenty. Some sources state up to 200. I've seen figures even higher than this. Ever since a blunt education by Marines in Afghanistan on the subject, I've been ever-skeptical of stated enemy numbers. While I was in Afghanistan on my first embed, the Marines taught me about "Afghan Math" - "Just divide by about ten to get the real number " is the governing directive of "Afghan Math"--when reading enemy numbers in press reports or when the enemy tries their brand of PsyOps over two-way radios ("we have fifty men waiting to ambush you" usually means, maybe, five).
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