The death wagons of Iraq

WorldNetDaily ^ | David Hackworth

[TADSLOS]

Hackworth's stock has gone way down with me in the last couple of years.

Ditto. Clancy's as well. I might just have a huge book bonfire in the backyard one of these nights to soothe irritation with these two..

[okie01]

What's this with "Terrible Tito's terrorists?" If I recall correctly, we helped Tito's resistance fighters, and later the Russians occupied Yugoslavia after pushing out the Germans.

The Russians never occupied Yugoslavia. Tito's government took power as the Germans retreated.

But there was friction along the border between Italy and Yugoslavia, where Yugoslav partisans had "reclaimed" Trieste and the Istrian peninsula from Italy. The area was under dispute until 1948, when Yugoslavia agreed to return Trieste and Italy agreed to let Tito keep Istria.

The U.S. role in this area was "peacekeeping".

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Soldiers from Alpha Company, 1st Engineer Battalion, drive their 113A3 Armored Personnel Carrier past a donkey while on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq, on Tuesday, 25 May, 2004.

I'm not sure what model of M113 those parked in Kuwait are. If they are stock M113A1 with no additional armor they are of limited utility. You have to wonder why they weren't issued out last year before OIF started. I suspect they have been there since Desert Storm and may not be in the greatest shape. Even if they are in great shape they are too slow for many missions and not all that well armored in their basic configuration. Perhaps the biggest war stopper in getting much use out of them is who are you going to give them to, and what do you expect them to do with them? Tracked vehicles require trained operators and dedicated maintenance. Giving M113's to a unit that has no track drivers, no maintenance capability and no Prescribed Load List of repair parts for the M113 is just a waste of everybody's time.

[risk]

Thank you both for the history lesson. Here's another, Harry Truman's notes on Trieste.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

There are a lot of good ideas out there but they won't be used because of the not invented here attitude at DoD & no patronage in Congress.

Scarab is one of those good ideas. Scroll up to Post 32 and click on Scarab.

[Ranger]

Good points. My understanding is that they were forward deployed from GW1. I don't know their maintenance condition. I'd probably give them to the national guard units or MPs at vulnerable locations, but you might have a better idea. Bet the sergeant in the article could do something with them ... At least the soccer mom's won't want to drive one. But then again.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Clancy, too? What did he do?

[TADSLOS]

He's in literary bed with Zinni in his new book, "Battle Ready", dissin' the administration over Iraq. Bad form and a political hit piece. He already had one strike against him for being an arrogant a$$ with diminishing story telling skills. This latest gaff just pushed him over the edge with me.

[Fedora]

Thanks for the link. This part especially interested me:

General Marshall and I, in discussing each military phase, agreed that if we were to win the peace after winning the war, we had to have Russian help. I was trying to get Churchill in a frame of mind to forget the old power politics and get a United Nations organization to work

Churchill had the right idea, but it took Truman a bit of dealing with Stalin to see it. I'm not sure Marshall ever really saw it.

[Justa]

You are correct, however the threat still lingers. Such tactics were quite effective at the start of April's insurgency, in effect destroying organized military supply and control in the first weeks. The green faces worked very hard keeping the insurgency from mobilizing into something more effective. They did an awesome job.

[Vetvoice]

You're going to have to familiarize yourself with the way we handle prepositioned stocks. They are serviced by civilian technicians that do nothing except change filters, fluids, crank and run the vehicles and keep them ready to fight.

They can be driven off the preposioning installation (on ship or shore) and be used by the newly arriving troops to fight. That is why we preposition equipment, ammunition, food, medical supplies and even canned water in forward areas. We can go to war by flying in personnel. The equipment is already serviced and ready to go.

The original M113 has no suffix - it was an M113. The A1 upgrade in about 1968 got rid of the gasoline engines which were replaced with diesels and (I believe) strengthened the transmissions. The A2 upgrade took place in about 1979 and the A3s came online in 1987. So if these are "the best of the rest" like the man said, they would be M113A3s that are serviced, armed, fueled and ready to be driven.

[Vetvoice]

Marine Air no longer supports the Marines in the sense of WW II and Korea. They now fly off Nevy carriers and hit the targets assigned by the ship's Commander of the Air Group (CAG). The Marine fliers are Marines in name only.

[Vetvoice]

No, Hackworth lost his Pentagon sources when he jumped on the Wesley Clark bandwagon. Clark is one of the few generals to be fired in recent years and even his superiors said they would not support him. I have no idea why Hackworth reversed himself and backed that turkey.

[Vetvoice]

Clancy jumped in bed with that nitwit Anthiny Zinni after he was fired for getting the USS Cole hit. Clancy put Zinni's name on his next thriller so that Zinni could refer "to his book."

[Cannoneer No. 4]

I understand what POMCUS is. Why were these M113's culled from the rest of the vehicles? Why were these M113's not drawn during the build up to OIF?

If there is such a great demand for them in Iraq, why are they still in Kuwait?

The only units that could successfully operate and maintain them would be combat engineer, armor, cavalry, and mechanized infantry battalions, and then only if their maintenance people deployed with them. How many cherry pickers are parked in Kuwait?

[Vetvoice]

All arriving units for OIF brought their own equipment. Think of them as they arrived. First came the 3rd ID in January or so and they waited for all of their own equipment to arrive. Then the Marine Corps arrived and they are configured slightly differently and more lightly than Army units. They make wide use of Amphib-tractors for APCs and the the 4th ID made the long trip around Turkey to enter from the south. They had to wait in Kuwait until their M1A2 Abrams and compatible third generation Bradleys were unloaded and then make the 400 or so mile drive north.

There has been no unit to arrive without its own equipment and the M113A3s are sitting in Kuwait being cranked and run every two weeks to keep the batteries up on them in case anyone is willing to take their commission out of the frailties of the Stryker and protect his men. So far, they have all toed the Army line - we all want more Strykers so we can hide them too behind the 12 foot fences of Saddam's old palaces.

[defenderSD]

There is an armored version of the Humvee with 2 tons of Kevlar armor and bullet-proof glass. That's probably the vechicle he's driving and it's much safer than the unarmored humvee. They're building armored humvees as fast as possible, but until ALL our vehicles are armored the insurgents will just attack the unarmored vehicles. They will probably not attempt to attack your son in an armored humvee.

[glorgau]

There was/is much speculation that the Army should have just dug out the M113s it has in storage upgraded them to the latest version and used for the Stryker brigades as they are quite superior to the Stryker vehicles in most ways, plus they are cheaper.

You'd think it wouldn't be that expensive to slap some ceramic plates and reactive armor on the sides. for myself, I'd feel a whole lot better in something like that rather than a HUMVEE.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Praise the lord, he was OK!

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping