New vehicles for Afghanistan

Most of 'em are junk, the bleddy WIMIK thing (below) is straight out of Monty Python with the crew totally exposed, hasn't it occurred to the government, MOD and brasshats that the Talis will be firing back?

wimik.jpg
 
Isn't the WMIK being replaced with the Jackal?

Ive heard the Jackal (while still being rather exposed) is proving very popular as it provides a lot of highly mobile firepower, the US special forces have started using them i think
 
The Jackal (below) has had some armour slapped on it but is just as useless as the WIMIK because the crew are still exposed and wouldn't stand a chance when the Talis spray it with AK-47 and sniper fire, it reminds me of them wacky vehicles the A-Team used to lash up.
No doubt the Labour Govt bought it because it was cheaper than a proper AFV, and most of the Army brasshats are too thick to see its shortcomings. Between them, the Brit Govt and brass couldn't run a whelk stall let alone an army

jackal.jpg
 
I think you'd be suprised how innacurate Talib fire can be and how long exposed crew members can stay safe. Ive read plenty of stories of WMIK crew members staying on their GPMG on top of the WMIK under heavy talib fire and they all survived.
 
The biggest threat in Afghanistan is the IEDs in all their forms.
A complicated threat by nature which is impossible to counter 100%.
As fr as i know Mastiff is the most well protected vehicle as it includes some passive measures against IEDs and extra armour at the bottom parts which are normally affected by an IED blast
It's also very popular among British soldiers although their numbers (as far as i know) are not up to the tasks.
 
Yeah Cargol, I think the number of casualties caused by small arms fire to Vehicle crews is quite low. The Jackal also has IED protection, notice the shape of the armor underneath it
 
Jonny said:
I think you'd be suprised how innacurate Talib fire can be and how long exposed crew members can stay safe. Ive read plenty of stories of WMIK crew members staying on their GPMC on top of the WMIK under heavy talib fire and they all survived.
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You can stay exposed on the GPMG on top of the WIMIK under heavy Taliban fire if you like mate, but include me out..;)
 
As for IED's the simple way to defeat them is to avoid them and go off-road..:)
Heck, Rommel showed us how to do it by regularly going through the open desert to skirt round Brit minefields 60 years ago with his tanks and ricketty trucks.
Todays vehicles have much better off-road capability, so they should stay off Afgh roads as much as possible.
 
Then you have the problem of large parts of the off road areas of of Afghanistan being minefields.

My personal solution is hovercraft ;)
 
And helicopters..:)
In fact the Brit media have been criticising the Govt for some time now over the lack of helicopters, it's a bit of a scandal..
 
The problem is that due to terrain restrictions vehicles in Afghanistan are road bounded to fulffill their mission.
With the term road i mean basically dirt tracks and very rarely normal roads or close to normal.
If Afghanistan had normal road,s IEDs would be less effective as the terrorists wouldnt have were to bury them.
Roads do exist in Afghanistan but are few compared with length of this country which has aprox the surface of Germany and France together.
Even off road, IEDs are planted in key terrain
 
PoorOldSpike said:
And helicopters..:)
In fact the Brit media have been criticising the Govt for some time now over the lack of helicopters, it's a bit of a scandal..
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True the British Government has undersupplied the mission, including in helicopters, but there are some things you can't do in a helicopter, you'll allways need these light vehicles.
 
Cargol said:
The problem is that due to terrain restrictions vehicles in Afghanistan are road bounded to fulffill their mission.
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Sadly, we don't know too much about what's going on in Afgh regarding type of missions, objectives and tactics, otherwise we'd be able to have a full in-depth discussion.
Only in years to come, after all the books have been written will we have a full picture of what's been going on.
All i know at the moment is that Coalition tactics are generally just plain bad, as proven by our body-count, even some enlightened US and Brit brass are saying so but they're isolated voices in the wilderness.
Anyway some Brit political parties promise to bring our troops home when they're elected, so if the Brit public want them home, the polling stations are the places to do it.
 
Surely you mean Strategy POS? Coalition forces almost allways win the firefight
 
The strategy is bad as well as the tactics.
For example strategy-wise I heard Obama say on TV "Our aim is to contain the Taliban and prevent them spreading their influence". See, not a word about DEFEATING them.
As for tactics, the Talis don't go in for large-scale pitched battles for the simple reason they don't want one. In CM terms, they hold most of the flags in Afgh and just want to sit tight holding them til the Coalition goes away, years from now.Their attitude is "We're here and we're staying, we don't need to fight"
Sure there are small and ambushes and firefights, but these are just isolated pinprick things in the overall scale of things.
Only last week a TV documentary followed a US battlegroup that was going out to look for a big battle with the Talis, but it went like a damp squib because the Talis simply sprayed the convoy with small-arms fire at long range, then melted back into the hills,valleys and villages. Nobody was hurt on either side.
The Talis know they can't be killed if the Coalition can't see them..:)
 
Ive read many accounts of the Taliban making brazen attacks on coalition FOBs etc, they are certainly not shy of fighting.
 
Jonny said:
Ive read many accounts of the Taliban making brazen attacks on coalition FOBs etc, they are certainly not shy of fighting.
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Be careful not to swallow US/Brit Govt and brasshat propaganda mate, remember they want to present a picture of the Talis being a "tough resourceful enemy" to cover up their own lack of results in tackling them..;)
What bollox, the truth is the Tali are just an untrained undisciplined bunch of trigger-pullers, a bit like the IRA were against the Brit Army, and the Vietcong against the US Army.
And, like the IRA and Cong, the Talis strategy is to sit tight, avoid major battles, inflict casualties via small ambushes, IED's and skirmishes, and wait for the enemy to go home, or in CM terms- sit quietly holding the flags til the clock runs out.
 
Oh it's not British/US propoganda, real life accounts from serving soldiers.
 
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