US Should Use 14th Century Mongol Tactics

Fee

[Fee]

War in Afghanistan can be fought from the air. The US has the ability to command the night, which is when guerilla type armies usually move and operate. If the war is fought in the winter, any IR signatures (i.e camp fires and etc) would provide our gunships targets. General concentrations of Taliban infantry can be pinned by cluster mines, and detected IR clusters will be attacked. There will be no sweeping battles like Desert Storm, but rather the US will attack like the Mongol horse archers of the 14th century. The objective is to wear down the enemy by long range weapons on the tactical level. The enemy will be pinned, detected and destroyed one by one. This modern form of horse archers is most effective in the winter. No matter how tough physically the Taliban fighter is, the elements of the winter will overcome him if he is pinned and deprived over long periods of time. Fighters will need food, water, sleep and warmth to survive. Any fighter who ventures out of his hiding place for food and water will be killed, any attempts to warm the hiding place will also make it a target for our gunships in the night. The US should also stop food and medical aid to the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan and make their lives miserable. If properly applied, this will add psychological pressure on the fighters knowing that their families are not secure.

[2ndMostConservativeBrdMember]

My dear brother and sister FReepers,

At this, of all times in my lifetime, I would like nothing more than to be able to read these threads and reply to them.  I have much I would like to say.

BUT, I cannot!

Why?

Because I am trying hard to raise the finances needed to keep FreeRepublic up and running so that we can continue to share valuable information and respond to it.

I beg you, if you have not yet donated to FreeRepublic this quarter,  do so now!

If you have already donated, THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND GOD BLESS YOU, please ping your friends, and FReep on...!

I realize you are giving to lots of Relief efforts and I encourage you to do so.  But we need to help FR too.  Where would we be right now without it?

If you have no money, please come and bump the Fundraiser Thread.

I would really like to reach our goal quickly so that I and the rest of the dedicated FReepers who are working the Fundraiser Threads can participate in what is undeniably the most important time in FreeRepublic's history.

WHERE WOULD YOU GET YOUR NEWS FROM IF FREEREPUBLIC WASN'T HERE?<--click here

Support FreeRepublic! Support the U.S.A. <--click here

[Hegewisch Dupa]

I'm not disagreeing with this - makes buttloads of sense to me. But I'm far from an expert - hell, I get my a$$ kicked in Civilization half the time - so I wonder: why didn't the Russians think of this? Again, I just want some knowledge; I ain't picking a fight...

[okie_tech]

Like the Mongols horse archers, Airpower depends on the open steps to be most effective. Airpower has proven itself to be very ineffective in mountainous terrian. Our air forces have also proven themselves time and time again to be easily fooled by decoys due to their dependance on IR signatures. We either nuke all their cities into rubble and scare the sh1t out of every Arab in the world, making them too terrified to ever support terrorists again, or we go in on the group for a very long and difficult special forces hunt.

[okie_tech]

I've really got to start proof reading my posts :-(

[Abn1508]

YEah, but then we got to dismount, kill the wounded, burn the village, rape the women and toss the children in the wells.

Please give the Mongols full credit.

[Abn1508]

By the way, this was pretty similar to the Russian tactic and they added in driving all the peasants they couldn't control out of the country by such wonderful tactics as dropping "toe-popper" mines attached to sparkly metal stuff. Very young children would see the sparkly stuff and pick it up, thus blowing their hand or part of it off.

In case it wasn't clear, while I'm emotionally on your side and even in favor of the nuclear option, I don't think that it will work.

[Destructor]

You nailed it buddy! Historically, the Afghans are harder to kill than Cockroaches. It will have to be a ground campaign at some point.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

The Mongols were fighting knights wearing armour, which slowed them down. We'll be fighting lighly armed, highly motivated and experienced guerilla units on their own terrain which favors them, not us. Another tidbit: Mongols were completely non-sectarian. They never made religion the issue. And if I'm wrong on any of this, please add lots and lots of corrections with as many interesting details as you can remember, because it's an interesting analogy and if I'm wrong about any of it, I'd like to learn more. Thanks in advance.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

The Mongols didn't kill _everyone_. They always let a few flee to the next village to recount in detail just how horrible it was when the last village had tried to resist ... On the other hand, the Mongols never took prisoners -- they couldn't see the point.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I'm getting this all, I'm embarassed to say, from some sort of a "Discovery Channel" type series in the 90's called "Mongol Hordes: Storm from the East". Usually I'd give any source like that a 2 out of 10 for veracity and accuracy. But it was entertaining enough that some of the details stayed in my head. This was back in that short college age period of my life when I actually had access to a TV. Just giving a disclaimer.

[tm22721]

Commando insertion could be a disaster if any groups get caught, which is likely at night with disorientation. We can't send helos into those valleys during the day when the Afghanis can shoot down on them from the ridges.

Lots of GIs could get trapped and skinned alive.

BUMP

[Flatfoot]

And where will the US helicopters be based in between attacking like 14th Century Mongol horse archers? Presumably at airbases in the valleys overlooked by mountains, with all their supplies either being flown in or crawling in along hundreds of miles of roads. If you want to conquer Afganistan it's going to take a lot of riflemen getting their feet dirty and fighting messy little skirmishes. Afganistan is not an easy place to fight in. I wouldn't be too confident about who would end up being pinned, detected and destroyed one by one. I'd also disagree with you about stopping food and medical aid to refugee camps in Pakistan just to make their lives miserable. Far from demoralising Afgan soldiers this would make them hate those damned yankees all the more, and be more prepared to die on their feet defending their country. Better to provide ample food and medical aid to (well guarded) refugee camps, so fighters have an incentive to throw down their arms and go someplace better.

[patent]

Better to provide ample food and medical aid to (well guarded) refugee camps, so fighters have an incentive to throw down their arms and go someplace better.

Very, very, very true. If they have nothing at all to lose, we can never win. They will fight forever. We have to give them hope of something better if we are going to win over there. The Taliban and Islamic fundamentalism play very well off desperation. Making more people desperate plays right into their strength.

Besides, its just plain the wrong thing to do, starving innocents who aren’t fighting.

patent  +AMDG

[livius]

We've been providing food aid to Afghanistan, which is in the midst of a famine, brought on by their civil war between rival fundamentalist Muslim groups. Some thanks we get! Of course, all of the food was probably siphoned off and sent immediately to the Muslim seminaries (schools for terrorists) in Pakistan.

In any case, I do think that we should sit down and carefully reread ancient strategy manuals and consider, as suggested, what "principles of war" might be most suited to this. We should also not forget the horrible things that happened to the British in the 19th century during their meeting with Afghanistan. I believe a number of them were drawn and quartered, and thousands more (including dependent women and children) were slaughtered in the Khyber Pass while they were retreating and headed home.

[breakem]

Add beheadings and ya got something there.

[Doctor Stochastic]

You forgot "Pile up the skulls in a big pyramid" like in the sack of Delhi.

[csvset]

There's always biological warfare.

[maestro]

??Plagues??

[Black Agnes]

Agreed. Wise man once say: Enemy with nothing to lose...most dangerous enemy of them all..