sambo hux:
“chickenhawks”
“Candya#$ses.”
Sigh…you really gotta get with the new meme, sonny. The “All pro-war conservatives have never served in the military” thing is SO 2004.
I don’t take it personally, since I was a grunt in a Marine infantry battalion, (1/4 to be precise, and I believe they were ALSO at Fallujah…and they “got some”).
Saw the elephant in Desert Storm, serving on a big grey,(unarmed), ship packed with Marine Air Wingers and their gadgets and goodies while Sadaam’s boys shot SCUDS at us in Jubail.
“Fought in the Battle of Fallujah. Saw it for what it is, not what I want it to be.”
And would that be the “Science” part of “Military Science”?
The “anonymous number value’s” point of view of what is little more than a logistical exercise?
Formula goes something like this:
# of our combat effectives vs. worst estimate of # of their combat effectives. (Rule of thumb has been attacker/defender ratio of 3/1 for centuries, given evenly matched opponents in arms, maneuver, and training).
Add or subtract to project X amount of our guys per square kilometer.
Adjust for terrain, (MOUT, in this case).
Add or subtract from our guy’s total for advantage multipliers of C3I superiority, command of the air,maneuver, and supporting arms capabilities and rest/resupply opportunities, as well as medical care availability. Subtract for enemy’s lack of formal training and effects of blockade on his logistics.
This formula should give you a rough figure of how many fighting men to deploy, and on how long it will take you to pacify the area in question.
You then fine-tune it with considerations of how many losses you’re willing to take and how much collateral damage you’re willing to cause.
That’s (very roughly),the “Science”…now how all that is combined and employed is the “Art”…and if the Logisticians have been able to do the Science well, then the battle’s usually more than halfway won.
Was that the “what it is” that you saw?
News-flash for you soldier. It’s been like that since at least the Civil War…Grant’s “Bleeding his way to Victory”.
Talk to some WWII Marines or MacArthur’s soldiers who did the Island hopping thing. By the autumn of ’44, they had it doped almost to the 6 hour window when enemy resistance would be broken.
You’re in a war that’s cost 5000 dead roughly in almost six years of operations.
In World War II, 5000 dead was a “Light” month.
Grant lost 4000 in under an hour at Cold Harbor, (II Corps, Army of the Potomac learned the hard way not to charge well-manned trenches…they say General Hancock was never the same chap after).
So you were at Fallujah…between us…so what?
Take it from one vet to another, and one guy whose seen the elephant to another:
Stop being a punk.
You volunteered for this…so man the phuck up.
It doesn’t make you better or worse, smarter or dumber, braver or more cowardly. It just means you were there.
And you ain’t got any monopoly on that, kiddo.
Not around here…
