Posted on 04/19/2011 11:03:36 AM PDT by edpc
TRIPOLI, Libya – NATO military commanders conceded Tuesday they are unable to stop Moammar Gadhafi's shelling of the rebel-held city of Misrata, where hospitals are overwhelmed with casualties, while Britain said it will dispatch senior military officers to advise the opposition.
Misrata, Libya's third-largest city, has been under siege for nearly two months, with rebels holding on to seaside positions in the port area. In recent days, Libyan troops have pounded the city with shells and rockets.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
What´s wrong with letting islamists kill islamists? Too much practice?
I sit by the TV with channel changer in hand and ready to strike at a moments notice. Whey I hear that idiots name or see a video of him, I immediately go to an alternative channel. Only way to watch TV until at least Jan. 2013.
Artillery covers everything from mortars to rail guns. The smaller, self propelled guns and rocket launchers can shoot and scoot. Hide an a small building or a clump of trees. A favorite trick is to put them in the street next to a school or hospital, makes great news footage to have dead kids as collateral damage on the evening news. Israel is all but powerless to stop the mobile launchers that plague them.
These aren’t fixed arty positions that are easily spotted. If the jetjockeys get too trigger happy, you end up hitting friendlies as well as bad guys, saw that several times a couple weeks ago.
LOL, my hubby won’t even watch the news anymore for fear he won’t hit the remote quick enough.
My 80 year old father doesn’t want O’s name, whatever it really is, mentioned at family gatherings. Said he didn’t fight in a war to have communists take over anyway.
It works if you have the means to fix the exact coordinates of the enemy batteries, some of which are probably self-propelled and can be rapidly repositioned. Then you need weapons that can reach the target and destroy it. I'm just guessing but it seems they could try infiltrating Ghadaffi’s line at night with small teams of saboteurs to kill the gun crews and destroy the artillery and launchers.
Point taken. I automatically think of big guns when someone says artillery. I guess we have no Apache gunships in theater, as we’ve gotten pretty good at tagging “shoot and scoot”-ers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bring on some Hellfire!
France and Britain were pushing this not Urkel. He dithered and delayed doing anything until it was too late. He did not want this sideshow but was not strong enough to say “no”.
Dumbest War Ever.
Kinda like pistachios.
Bet you can’t shell just one.
When your ROEs are so complex that you can forget about any air to ground operations and are mostly confined to air-to-air.
There was nothing the West was going to win from the air regardless of what day Gaddafi was on the move.
The ones still stuck there trying to win it while Obama golfs are the suckers.
No planning, no vital interest, no consultations, only a mad rush to war and then suckering our allies by leaving as quick as he came in.
In Misrata Qs troops have brought the artillery into the city thus risking civilians. They also are using a large number of snipers. These snipers kill anyone they see on the street including women and children. Large numbers of victims with head and shoulder wounds are reported at hospitals. I heard that they have female Serbian mercenary snipers. What is it with Q and his female warriors? Perhaps the Brits can smuggle in a cadre of sniper hunters to even the odds.
Secondly, it is hard to have air superiority over a battlespace covered by a sandstorm. Qs troops have used a sandstorm to cover their reassault on Ajdabia.
A fact lost on many here, I'm afraid. This is, literally a 'blood for oil' war, with the recipient of said oil being the EU, so nothing is said about it...
the infowarrior
Infiltrating Qs lines at night with small teams of saboteurs requires those small teams of saboteurs to be both armed and trained on how to use explosives and supplied with them. Doubt there were many in Misrate with either. Perhaps this is what the British have in mind. It would make sense.
It would be very easy to starve Qadaffi’s forces by cutting off their supply lines, but that would require boots on the ground. The Libyan army is stretched for 100s of kilometers along the coast and wouldn’t survive a week if they were cut off from resupply of munitions.
Obama didn’t have to suck allies like France and Britain into this. They use a lot more Libyan oil than we do, and their gas prices are a lot higher than ours. Also, we have been subsidizing European military for years and it is about time they paid for their own war. I’m glad he put his foot down, if in fact that is what happened.
This fight would be very different if we could insert troops on the ground, either between Sirte and Misrata to help Misrata, and reduce supplies to Sirte; or between Sirte and Ras Lanuf to engage Qs troops headed to Ajdabia and/or cut off resupply. Meanwhile, I wonder what is being done at sea to cut off supplies of both food and guns to Qs people and to resupply Misrata and the East? Ultimately, the British and French may decide to turn this into a tank battle. I know the British Centurion tanks were with our M1Abrams in Gulf War I because my son was there with the 82nd Airborne and Sheridan air mobile tanks.
Sure it does. Ridding them of a relatively contained dictator in favor of a radical, terrorism-exporting government is all part of his plan to knock the arrogant USA down several pegs.
Situation FUBAR, understood.
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