4 ms·

Yes, we narrowly missed Bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001. But "just send more troops" and "use bigger bombs" betrays a lack of familiarity with combat in the moun

by whakim 5y ago

Yes, we narrowly missed Bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001. But "just send more troops" and "use bigger bombs" betrays a lack of familiarity with combat in the mountainous and inhospitable parts of Afghanistan. There's only so much air power can do in these places. It's incredibly hard to insert troops into places like these. You need to be able to medevac the WIA and KIA when things go wrong. There were no roads. In 2001, we were often literally using Russian maps. The history of these big mountain operations in Afghanistan is basically one of "let's send more troops/use bigger bombs/etc. etc." and it never got us anywhere. These operations pretty much always failed and we almost never got whoever we were going after.

dragontamer 5y ago
> The history of these big mountain operations in Afghanistan is basically one of "let's send more troops/use bigger bombs/etc. etc." and it never got us anywhere. Except in the Battle of Tora Bora, where the commanders on the ground said that the 100 troops deployed to the area were insufficient to push into a heavily fortified mountainous region. And they're right. If those 100 troops pushed in, they would have been massacred. More troops absolutely would have helped at that time. Plenty of airplanes dropped plenty of bombs. But the use of air-deployed land mines was not authorized, which could have also helped (GATOR mines self-detonate after 15 days, to minimize risks to the local population after battle. They are further battery-operated, and are designed to run out of battery in case the self-detonation fails) The gloves were still on. We could have easily used more force in that battle, but decided against it. --------- Traditionally, you need to outnumber your opponent 3 to 1 if you wish to lay siege to an enemy in their home territory. At some point, just raw manpower is what you need. As you said: we dropped plenty of bombs in that battle, but bombs aren't boots on the ground. You need people there to know if the bombs are in fact hitting their mark.
- whakim 5y ago
  You're getting fixated on the specifics of Tora Bora. Zoom out and look at the other big mountain operations over the following 15 years; you'll hear similar excuses "we needed this technology/we needed more men at this spot." With that context it's easy to see that Tora Bora probably wouldn't have been a success even with GATOR mines or more men.
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    We are literally talking about a battle that scared Osama Bin Laden so much that he wrote his last will and testament during the battle. Bin Laden thought he was going to die in that battle. We were close: just a little bit more would have done it. Sure, we didn't know how close we were until afterwards. But when you consider what we did accomplish with just 100 boots on the ground + air support, it really makes you wonder what we could have done with 800 or 2000 men instead.
    - whakim 5y ago
      I'm not sure this conversation is going anywhere because (again, with context you'd realize this) narrowly missing the target by a day or two was par for the course with these types of engagements. If you're interested in learning more, I'd strongly recommend Wes Morgan's excellent book "The Hardest Place."

by whakim 5y ago

dragontamer 5y ago

> The history of these big mountain operations in Afghanistan is basically one of "let's send more troops/use bigger bombs/etc. etc." and it never got us anywhere. Except in the Battle of Tora Bora, where the commanders on the ground said that the 100 troops deployed to the area were insufficient to push into a heavily fortified mountainous region. And they're right. If those 100 troops pushed in, they would have been massacred. More troops absolutely would have helped at that time. Plenty of airplanes dropped plenty of bombs. But the use of air-deployed land mines was not authorized, which could have also helped (GATOR mines self-detonate after 15 days, to minimize risks to the local population after battle. They are further battery-operated, and are designed to run out of battery in case the self-detonation fails) The gloves were still on. We could have easily used more force in that battle, but decided against it. --------- Traditionally, you need to outnumber your opponent 3 to 1 if you wish to lay siege to an enemy in their home territory. At some point, just raw manpower is what you need. As you said: we dropped plenty of bombs in that battle, but bombs aren't boots on the ground. You need people there to know if the bombs are in fact hitting their mark.

whakim 5y ago
You're getting fixated on the specifics of Tora Bora. Zoom out and look at the other big mountain operations over the following 15 years; you'll hear similar excuses "we needed this technology/we needed more men at this spot." With that context it's easy to see that Tora Bora probably wouldn't have been a success even with GATOR mines or more men.
- dragontamer 5y ago
  We are literally talking about a battle that scared Osama Bin Laden so much that he wrote his last will and testament during the battle. Bin Laden thought he was going to die in that battle. We were close: just a little bit more would have done it. Sure, we didn't know how close we were until afterwards. But when you consider what we did accomplish with just 100 boots on the ground + air support, it really makes you wonder what we could have done with 800 or 2000 men instead.
  - whakim 5y ago
    I'm not sure this conversation is going anywhere because (again, with context you'd realize this) narrowly missing the target by a day or two was par for the course with these types of engagements. If you're interested in learning more, I'd strongly recommend Wes Morgan's excellent book "The Hardest Place."