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> [JAM] Snipers would also shoot at the crane cable or the lone soldier that was forced to climb a ladder to unhook each concrete wall. Special operations force

> [JAM] Snipers would also shoot at the crane cable or the lone soldier that was forced to climb a ladder to unhook each concrete wall. Special operations forces snipers were extremely useful in a counter-sniper role. Nevertheless, there were situations where confirmed snipers and fighters that could not be engaged by US snipers had to be targeted with air-delivered, precision-guided bombs or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rounds that could penetrate the buildings’ layers of concrete. One instance that required a concrete-penetrating option was when a JAM sniper occupied and fortified one of the few five-story buildings north of the Gold Wall was being constructed and at a key intersection where he was able to engage the wall-building team. Direct fire placed on the building did not affect the sniper’s fortified position. 1-68 CAB’s solution was to drop the building using the GMLRS. But for the duration of the Battle of Sadr City, coalition forces used fewer than three mortar or artillery fire missions because of the risk of collateral damage, the prospect of injuring civilians, and the potential political ramifications both locally for the government of Iraq and internationally for political support to the coalition forces. Don't bring a sniper rifle to a combined-arms fight, I suppose. It's interesting & typical of modern war that the politics of the fight constrain the weapons choice much more than the tactical situation.

mathdog 8y ago
I love sugar
Spearchucker 8y ago
A more prudent stategy, I think, would have been for the sniper to change position. As they say in the military - proper planning prevents piss-poor performance.
skrebbel 8y ago
> had to be targeted with air-delivered, precision-guided bombs or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rounds that could penetrate the buildings’ layers of concrete. Wow, I'm very not used to reading military text. They write "a concrete-penetrating option" but they mean "we blew up the building and everybody inside it". I truly wonder how many innocent lives could be saved if military people would start writing honestly.
- sgift 8y ago
  > I truly wonder how many innocent lives could be saved if military people would start writing honestly. People didn't die because of writing. They died because someone used the building to shoot at people and couldn't be flushed out with smaller weapons. So, the answer to your question is "probably zero"
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
    The argument is that using euphemisms must serve some purpose, or otherwise they would not be used. That purpose is to hide the brutality of war, from either the writer, or the reader. In either case, allowing to hide the brutality makes it arguably more palatable to commit it (writer) or legitimize it (reader), and therefore contributes to it. I can’t put numbers on this, obviously, because nobody can. But just denying the argument with a sort of its-not-guns-that-kill-it’s-people-argument is intellectually dishonest.
    - skrebbel 8y ago
      Wow, I wish you had written my comment. Well put!
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
        It’s an unfortunate symptom of our times that we need to spell out every argument in minute detail, lest someone will do a bad-faith hack job willfully misunderstanding it.
    - tropo 8y ago
      It's not a euphemism. It's an accurate description of what matters. I would have chosen "collapse the building" or "level the building", despite being undisturbed by the death. The writer isn't about to distract from the topic at hand by going off on an opinionated tangent about death.
    - ALittleLight 8y ago
      I think you, or the original comment author, are mistaking technical language for euphemisms though and so the psychological analysis that euphemisms are hiding the brutality of war is not even wrong because there is no euphemism. As another comment points out "concrete penetrating" is a description that tells the class of weapon and the reason the weapon was chosen (to attack a target protected by concrete). The author isn't euphemisming but rather just using language appropriate to the context and the intended audience.
stcredzero 8y ago
a JAM sniper occupied and fortified one of the few five-story buildings north of the Gold Wall was being constructed and at a key intersection where he was able to engage the wall-building team. Direct fire placed on the building did not affect the sniper’s fortified position. 1-68 CAB’s solution was to drop the building using the GMLRS. There's companies that are researching or selling very precise indirect fire weapons. Basically, they're like the smart naval turret guns scaled down to around 20 or 30mm. You can fire a shell through a window and tell it to explode just inside. One of these on an APC, perhaps? (For all I know, these weapons were present, but the building was also fortified against them.)
- jacobush 8y ago
  Iv'e seen rounds with that feature (explode 1 meter past wall) for carbine use.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    It's been a few years, and technology moves fast.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >There's companies that are researching or selling very precise indirect fire weapons. Basically, they're like the smart naval turret guns scaled down to around 20 or 30mm. You can fire a shell through a window and tell it to explode just inside. These exist and are slowly becoming more mature. There was one that was tested in the early phases of what became the XM8 program in the early 2000s. So far the weapons that fire them seem to always wind up being too bulky/clunky/finicky for adoption by any military.
  - openasocket 8y ago
    Yeah, you're thinking of the XM29 "Objective Individual Combat Weapon," which was an assault rifle with the 20mm programmable grenade launcher on top. H&K essentially removed the smart grenade system to create the XM8. They also made the XM25, which was just the smart grenade launcher bit. All of those weapons never got past prototype, though all of this research eventually produced the M320, which is a non-smart under-barrel 40mm grenade launcher. There's also South Korea's K11, which is the same concept as the XM29, and seems to actually be used, though I can't find much info about its effectiveness. The conclusions from the failure of the XM29 I believe was that it isn't trivial to operate a smart grenade launcher, and the 20mm grenade doesn't have as much lethality as you would like. But perhaps the K11 was able to rectify these issues. I personally think this need for precise, powerful fires could be filled by a crew-serviced weapon mounted on an APC/IFV. Doesn't even have to be a smart grenade, could be a special autocannon or something.
RobertoG 8y ago
>>"[..] typical of modern war the politics of the fight constrain the weapons choice much more than the tactical situation. " That's a luxury that you only can afford when the asymmetry of force is huge and you are going to win anyway.
- el_benhameen 8y ago
  I'm not sure that I agree. I guess it depends on what you mean by "win". If you mean win that particular engagement, sure. But if by "win" you mean accomplish the objective, which in this case included not having the local population hate you for obliterating their city, then I don't think it's a luxury nor do I think you can win without such considerations. And really, I'm not sure that it's fair to say that the US has "won" either of the two major asymmetric wars it's been engaged in for the last 17 years, even with all of the political constraints they've ostensibly tried to follow.
  - RobertoG 8y ago
    By "win" I mean to kill the opponent in that specific battle. >>"[..] I'm not sure that it's fair to say that the US has "won" either of the two major asymmetric wars it's been engaged" In order to know if the US has won, we would need to know what were the goals of those wars in the first place. I'm not sure we know that.
  - bitexploder 8y ago
    The decay and destruction of their infrastructure was basically a foregone conclusion when we started the wars. Without our intervention and continued presence the damage would have been much higher. This in no way excuses or justifies us starting the conflicts to begin with, but, our rules of engagement are very strict and err heavily in favor of preventing civilian casualties, too a fault, many soldiers would say. This also means minimizing. Look at the battle of Ramadi. We /definitely/ won there. Then we lost it, and won it back. So it is quite possible to win these wars, but they require advanced warfare skills at a tactical and strategical level and the political will to not back out. We only last Ramadi because of politics.
jcranmer 8y ago
> It's interesting & typical of modern war that the politics of the fight constrain the weapons choice much more than the tactical situation. Not just modern war, but pretty much for most of history. Clausewitz's maxim that "war is a continuation of policy by other means" ought to be interpreted as a reminder that war is (or at least should be) subservient to the political goals that are fueling war, and that the military needs to be a tool, not a driver, of the government's foreign policies. Sadly, not all governments do a good job of remembering this fact, and that is often where the great military failures start from.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
sunjieming 8y ago
This was represented in the movie American Sniper. Chris Kyle was providing support for those building the walls. Not sure if it was in Sadr City
narrator 8y ago
There's some evidence, from people analyzing videos of the fight in Mosul, that now we take out snipers with Nanodrones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5LdagBBo-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5LdagBBo-k

mathdog 8y ago

I love sugar

Spearchucker 8y ago

A more prudent stategy, I think, would have been for the sniper to change position. As they say in the military - proper planning prevents piss-poor performance.

skrebbel 8y ago

> had to be targeted with air-delivered, precision-guided bombs or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) rounds that could penetrate the buildings’ layers of concrete. Wow, I'm very not used to reading military text. They write "a concrete-penetrating option" but they mean "we blew up the building and everybody inside it". I truly wonder how many innocent lives could be saved if military people would start writing honestly.

sgift 8y ago
> I truly wonder how many innocent lives could be saved if military people would start writing honestly. People didn't die because of writing. They died because someone used the building to shoot at people and couldn't be flushed out with smaller weapons. So, the answer to your question is "probably zero"
- IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
  The argument is that using euphemisms must serve some purpose, or otherwise they would not be used. That purpose is to hide the brutality of war, from either the writer, or the reader. In either case, allowing to hide the brutality makes it arguably more palatable to commit it (writer) or legitimize it (reader), and therefore contributes to it. I can’t put numbers on this, obviously, because nobody can. But just denying the argument with a sort of its-not-guns-that-kill-it’s-people-argument is intellectually dishonest.
  - skrebbel 8y ago
    Wow, I wish you had written my comment. Well put!
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 8y ago
      It’s an unfortunate symptom of our times that we need to spell out every argument in minute detail, lest someone will do a bad-faith hack job willfully misunderstanding it.
  - tropo 8y ago
    It's not a euphemism. It's an accurate description of what matters. I would have chosen "collapse the building" or "level the building", despite being undisturbed by the death. The writer isn't about to distract from the topic at hand by going off on an opinionated tangent about death.
  - ALittleLight 8y ago
    I think you, or the original comment author, are mistaking technical language for euphemisms though and so the psychological analysis that euphemisms are hiding the brutality of war is not even wrong because there is no euphemism. As another comment points out "concrete penetrating" is a description that tells the class of weapon and the reason the weapon was chosen (to attack a target protected by concrete). The author isn't euphemisming but rather just using language appropriate to the context and the intended audience.

stcredzero 8y ago

a JAM sniper occupied and fortified one of the few five-story buildings north of the Gold Wall was being constructed and at a key intersection where he was able to engage the wall-building team. Direct fire placed on the building did not affect the sniper’s fortified position. 1-68 CAB’s solution was to drop the building using the GMLRS. There's companies that are researching or selling very precise indirect fire weapons. Basically, they're like the smart naval turret guns scaled down to around 20 or 30mm. You can fire a shell through a window and tell it to explode just inside. One of these on an APC, perhaps? (For all I know, these weapons were present, but the building was also fortified against them.)

jacobush 8y ago
Iv'e seen rounds with that feature (explode 1 meter past wall) for carbine use.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  It's been a few years, and technology moves fast.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
>There's companies that are researching or selling very precise indirect fire weapons. Basically, they're like the smart naval turret guns scaled down to around 20 or 30mm. You can fire a shell through a window and tell it to explode just inside. These exist and are slowly becoming more mature. There was one that was tested in the early phases of what became the XM8 program in the early 2000s. So far the weapons that fire them seem to always wind up being too bulky/clunky/finicky for adoption by any military.
- openasocket 8y ago
  Yeah, you're thinking of the XM29 "Objective Individual Combat Weapon," which was an assault rifle with the 20mm programmable grenade launcher on top. H&K essentially removed the smart grenade system to create the XM8. They also made the XM25, which was just the smart grenade launcher bit. All of those weapons never got past prototype, though all of this research eventually produced the M320, which is a non-smart under-barrel 40mm grenade launcher. There's also South Korea's K11, which is the same concept as the XM29, and seems to actually be used, though I can't find much info about its effectiveness. The conclusions from the failure of the XM29 I believe was that it isn't trivial to operate a smart grenade launcher, and the 20mm grenade doesn't have as much lethality as you would like. But perhaps the K11 was able to rectify these issues. I personally think this need for precise, powerful fires could be filled by a crew-serviced weapon mounted on an APC/IFV. Doesn't even have to be a smart grenade, could be a special autocannon or something.

RobertoG 8y ago

>>"[..] typical of modern war the politics of the fight constrain the weapons choice much more than the tactical situation. " That's a luxury that you only can afford when the asymmetry of force is huge and you are going to win anyway.

el_benhameen 8y ago
I'm not sure that I agree. I guess it depends on what you mean by "win". If you mean win that particular engagement, sure. But if by "win" you mean accomplish the objective, which in this case included not having the local population hate you for obliterating their city, then I don't think it's a luxury nor do I think you can win without such considerations. And really, I'm not sure that it's fair to say that the US has "won" either of the two major asymmetric wars it's been engaged in for the last 17 years, even with all of the political constraints they've ostensibly tried to follow.
- RobertoG 8y ago
  By "win" I mean to kill the opponent in that specific battle. >>"[..] I'm not sure that it's fair to say that the US has "won" either of the two major asymmetric wars it's been engaged" In order to know if the US has won, we would need to know what were the goals of those wars in the first place. I'm not sure we know that.
- bitexploder 8y ago
  The decay and destruction of their infrastructure was basically a foregone conclusion when we started the wars. Without our intervention and continued presence the damage would have been much higher. This in no way excuses or justifies us starting the conflicts to begin with, but, our rules of engagement are very strict and err heavily in favor of preventing civilian casualties, too a fault, many soldiers would say. This also means minimizing. Look at the battle of Ramadi. We /definitely/ won there. Then we lost it, and won it back. So it is quite possible to win these wars, but they require advanced warfare skills at a tactical and strategical level and the political will to not back out. We only last Ramadi because of politics.

jcranmer 8y ago

> It's interesting & typical of modern war that the politics of the fight constrain the weapons choice much more than the tactical situation. Not just modern war, but pretty much for most of history. Clausewitz's maxim that "war is a continuation of policy by other means" ought to be interpreted as a reminder that war is (or at least should be) subservient to the political goals that are fueling war, and that the military needs to be a tool, not a driver, of the government's foreign policies. Sadly, not all governments do a good job of remembering this fact, and that is often where the great military failures start from.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

sunjieming 8y ago

This was represented in the movie American Sniper. Chris Kyle was providing support for those building the walls. Not sure if it was in Sadr City

narrator 8y ago

There's some evidence, from people analyzing videos of the fight in Mosul, that now we take out snipers with Nanodrones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5LdagBBo-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5LdagBBo-k