"Fourteen Marines were killed yesterday when their lightly armored amphibious assault vehicle was blown apart by an explosion while they were en route to retake an area in western Iraq that had been cleared of insurgents at least once before."
The thing that struck me as odd is the use of an amphibious assault vehicle in the desert. Surely our military is equipped for desert operations. Our WWII experience in North Africa, our experiences in the Southwest and across the border into Mexico before WWI, the first Gulf war, and other campaigns planned but never conducted with respect to Lybia, to the Arab Gulf, and so forth must surely have provided us with a suitable basis of experience and an awareness of need to provide equipment designed for desert operations.
Perhaps one of our military enthusiasts can enlighten me on this subject.
Alan Moore
Posts: 2012 | Location: USA | Registered: 10-05-03
Maybe they planned on crossing rivers, and felt that bridges were too unsafe. And maybe they have run out of desert vehicles. They started having maintenance problems over a year ago. Apparently, Iraq's sandstorms were a surprise to the military (and civilians) who planned the war. Many pieces of equipment were just breaking down from overuse, too.
Posts: 17504 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
I won’t go into too much detail, but I’ll enlighten you Alan.
Operation Quick Strike is basically aimed at disrupting insurgents and foreign fighters in the Euphrates River valley. Those Marines had the proper vehicle for the operations they were performing. The Marines who died were out doing their job. Six of those Marines were Scout / Sniper teams. (The rest support personnel) They need to be inserted and extracted anytime anywhere on short to no notice. If they were in any other type vehicle what would they do if they encountered a river or deep creek while trying to extract their team members or they were being fired upon? Yes, they have rivers and creeks even in the desert.
Clearly an AAV does not offer the same protection as a tank does, but a tank can’t swim. I still find it odd the media considers a 50,000 pound vehicle with more armor plating than the most armored Humvee a “lightly armored vehicle”. Maybe they just never took a ride in one.
DG, the sandstorms were no surprise to anyone. It was known even back in 1990-1991 that sand can wreak havoc on turbines, engines and moving parts that require grease. The sand sticks to the grease and wears the joint at a very accelerated pace. Maintenance will always be a problem in a desert.
Posts: 3713 | Location: Long Island, New York USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Thanks, Koz. And thanks for pointing out that the vehicle is much more heavily armored than a Humvee. I didn't make the comparison, but wondered why a 25 ton vehicle was considered lightly armored. That's about 7 times as heavy as an average automobile.
I was being sarcastic about the sandstorms. The real problem, as pointed out in news articles well over a year ago, when they first started wearing out and breaking down, was poor planning with regard to replacement parts. It seems to me that if a nation can decide when to start a war, it can wait until it has enough equipment. After all, Saddam wasn't going anywhere; we had him hemmed in on three sides, and the fourth side leads to Iran.
Posts: 17504 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Originally posted by Koz: I won’t go into too much detail, but I’ll enlighten you Alan.
Operation Quick Strike is basically aimed at disrupting insurgents and foreign fighters in the Euphrates River valley. Those Marines had the proper vehicle for the operations they were performing. The Marines who died were out doing their job. Six of those Marines were Scout / Sniper teams. (The rest support personnel) They need to be inserted and extracted anytime anywhere on short to no notice. If they were in any other type vehicle what would they do if they encountered a river or deep creek while trying to extract their team members or they were being fired upon? Yes, they have rivers and creeks even in the desert.
Well, Haditha itself is, indeed, on the river, so that makes some kind of sense.
Actually, in the desert there however, they are more likely to run into a dry watercourse, with vertical banks than a creek with water in it, except for the river itself. Once leaving the Anatolian plateau, the Euphrates has no real tributaries until it joins with the Tigris to form the Shatt-al-Arab.
Alan Moore
Posts: 2012 | Location: USA | Registered: 10-05-03
At this time of year I am guessing the drainiage creeks would be dry in the desert too. But actually Operation Quick Strike is happening in populated areas like Haqlaniyah, Haditha and Parwana located close to and on the river. While I am not a geologist by any stretch of the imagination I do know that there are irrigation ditches, sewage ditches, and dry (At this time of year) drainiage ditches than can be plugged and filled with water (or even oil) throughout that particular area. Not to mention the large dam and hydroelectric plant. While there are not tributaries in the true sense, there are many small creeks feeding off the river, ponds and small lakes. They are just not too long. My terminology might be wrong, but bottom line there is water and mud in the area of these operations and the proper vehicle was used to insert and extract these Marines.
Many pieces of equipment were just breaking down from overuse, too.
