Feral Jundi

   I think these three stories do a pretty good job of discussing what’s what in the war.  In the second story, there is a article mentioned in the UPI about weight versus mobility, that you can check out as well.  My take away from all of this is that armor is too heavy–duh, and our weapons suck.  The thing to ask, is are we able to catch the Taliban up in the mountains when we hunt him?  And better yet, do our troops have a weapon that will work as advertised when we catch up to these ‘miscreants’. (I love using that word, because that is what the Pakistanis call the Taliban–lol)

   Don’t get me wrong though, because many of these advances in weapons and armor is amazing and they have their place.  But we have to be realistic about what really wins battles up in those mountains, and against mountain people. –Matt

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A soldier hiking in the hills of the Korengal Valley. 

Weapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight

October 12, 2009

By RICHARD LARDNER

Associated Press Writer

In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips’ M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn’t work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a “critical moment” during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

Despite the military’s insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There’s no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war.

Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said a review of the battle at Kamdesh is under way. “It is too early to make any assumptions regarding what did or didn’t work correctly,” he said.

Complaints about the weapons the troops carry, especially the M4, aren’t new. Army officials say that when properly cleaned and maintained, the M4 is a quality weapon that can pump out more than 3,000 rounds before any failures occur.

The M4 is a shorter, lighter version of the M16, which made its debut during the Vietnam war. Roughly 500,000 M4s are in service, making it the rifle troops on the front lines trust with their lives.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a leading critic of the M4, said Thursday the Army needs to move quickly to acquire a combat rifle suited for the extreme conditions U.S. troops are fighting in.

U.S. special operations forces, with their own acquisition budget and the latitude to buy gear the other military branches can’t, already are replacing their M4s with a new rifle.

“The M4 has served us well but it’s not as good as it needs to be,” Coburn said.

Battlefield surveys show that nearly 90 percent of soldiers are satisfied with their M4s, according to Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, head of the Army office that buys soldier gear. Still, the rifle is continually being improved to make it even more reliable and lethal.

Fuller said he’s received no official reports of flawed weapons performance at Wanat. “Until it showed up in the news, I was surprised to hear about all this,” he said.

The study by Douglas Cubbison of the Army Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., hasn’t been publicly released. Copies of the study have been leaked to news organizations and are circulating on the Internet.

Cubbison’s study is based on extensive interviews with Phillips and other soldiers who survived the attack at Wanat. He describes a well-coordinated attack by a highly skilled enemy that unleashed a withering barrage with AK-47 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

The soldiers said their weapons were meticulously cared for and routinely inspected by commanders. But still the weapons had breakdowns, especially when the rifles were on full automatic, which allows hundreds of bullets to be fired a minute.

The platoon-sized unit of U.S. soldiers and about two dozen Afghan troops was shooting back with such intensity the barrels on their weapons turned white hot. The high rate of fire appears to have put a number of weapons out of commission, even though the guns are tested and built to operate in extreme conditions.

Cpl. Jonathan Ayers and Spc. Chris McKaig were firing their M4s from a position the soldiers called the “Crow’s Nest.” The pair would pop up together from cover, fire half a dozen rounds and then drop back down.

On one of these trips up, Ayers was killed instantly by an enemy round. McKaig soon had problems with his M4, which carries a 30-round magazine.

“My weapon was overheating,” McKaig said, according to Cubbison’s report. “I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about a half hour or so into the fight. I couldn’t charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I got mad and threw my weapon down.”

The soldiers also had trouble with their M249 machine guns, a larger weapon than the M4 that can shoot up to 750 rounds per minute.

Cpl. Jason Bogar fired approximately 600 rounds from his M-249 before the weapon overheated and jammed the weapon.

Bogar was killed during the firefight, but no one saw how he died, according to the report.

Story here.

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A Heads-Up About Helmets

October 8, 2009

By C.J. Chivers

Nearly 60 years ago, a researcher with secret government clearance at Johns Hopkins University reviewed a set of military casualty statistics that confirmed something combat soldiers and military surgeons had long sensed intuitively: the human head suffers a disproportionate amount of trauma on the modern battlefield.

An analysis of nearly 600,000 injuries to American infantry troops in World War II found that while the head makes up about 12 percent of the typical infantryman’s body area, it suffered 21 percent of the reported injuries from bullets and shrapnel. Moreover, because of the head’s fragility and the dangers inherent in trauma to the central nervous system, head injuries accounted for 47 percent of deaths in the infantry ranks.

These were important findings. The author of the study, Norman A. Hitchman, worked for the Operations Research Office, which was under government contract during the early cold war and made many independent recommendations about military equipment decisions. One conclusion from the data was self-evident. There is no better investment in battlefield safety equipment than a good helmet.

Mr. Hitchman estimated that the M-1 helmet worn in World War II had saved 76,000 American infantrymen from serious injury or death. He further noted that the helmets available in the 1950s weighed 3 pounds, and that “to effect about the same decrease in total battle casualties” provided by this helmet, more than 20 pounds or armor would be required elsewhere on a soldier’s body.

I dug up Mr. Hitchman’s now-declassified report a few years ago while scouring archives and military libraries looking for materials related to the evolution of infantry tactics and military small arms. Like many largely forgotten military studies, Mr. Hitchman’s study is germane today.

Why? Because beneath the din of news from Afghanistan and Iraq, one of the constant conversations heard among soldiers and Marines in the field revolves around questions of protective gear. How much is enough? What constitutes too much? What can be left behind? What is being lost by wearing what is worn?

American troops today are issued and usually required to wear a full suite of protective items – helmets, flak jackets with plates that can stop the bullets most common to the battlefield, ballistic eyewear, ear plugs, fire-resistant uniforms and gloves. Some soldiers choose to add even more. Over-the-counter knee pads, to be worn during the rough and painful work of searching buildings and bounding during contact, are a common sight. Turret gunners often wear fire-retardant undershirts and hoods.

Almost every experienced unit has members who have been spared death or serious injury by this gear. Naturally, many soldiers are grateful to have it.

But others question whether the perceived benefits are overstated. The objectors point to the perpetual trade-off of a combat soldier’s life: weight versus mobility.

When a contemporary American foot soldier slips into battle gear and then adds the other equipment typically needed for a mission – weapons, ammunition, fragmentation and smoke grenades, first aid kits, food, water, compasses, G.P.S. units, radios, batteries, night-vision equipment, flashlights, flex-cuffs, maps, pens, paper, cameras – the total burden can quickly exceed 70, 80 or even 100 pounds.

And a soldier carrying this poundage, step by step, hour by hour, dash by dash, is slow, prone to dehydration, vulnerable to exhaustion and arguably less effective on patrol than a soldier more lightly equipped. Soldiers and Marines know this. They discuss it endlessly. Some officers advocate drastically lightening loads.

The sentiments are far from unanimous, but I cannot count how many times I have had grunts in the field, from privates to lieutenant colonels, tell me that they wish they could wear less gear, and thereby cover more ground, and more difficult ground, and more quickly and for a longer period of time.

How are they ever to keep up with insurgents, they ask, when insurgents often wear nothing more than clothing and sneakers, and are burdened by only a rifle and a few magazines?

The question fuels an argument that has raged for decades.

For those units that do choose to shed some of their protective gear on certain missions, Mr. Hitchman’s study, compiled from a larger sampling of casualty data than what is available from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined, suggests one thing. The helmet should be the last item left behind. Put another way, it is the best piece of protective gear – by weight and by the nature of the area it protects — that any soldier has.

Story here.

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Weight of Combat Gear Is Taking Toll

The Loads Are Contributing to Injuries That Are Keeping Some Troops on the Sidelines

By Ann Scott TysonWashington Post Staff WriterSunday, February 1, 2009

Carrying heavy combat loads is taking a quiet but serious toll on troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, contributing to injuries that are sidelining them in growing numbers, according to senior military and defense officials.

Rising concern over the muscle and bone injuries — as well as the hindrance caused by the cumbersome gear as troops maneuver in Afghanistan’s mountains — prompted Army and Marine Corps leaders and commanders to launch initiatives last month that will introduce lighter equipment for some U.S. troops.

As the military prepares to significantly increase the number of troops in Afghanistan — including sending as many as 20,000 more Marines — fielding a new, lighter vest and helmet is a top priority, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway said recently. “We are going to have to lighten our load,” he said, after inspecting possible designs during a visit to the Quantico Marine base.

Army leaders and experts say the injuries — linked to the stress of bearing heavy loads during repeated 12- or 15-month combat tours — have increased the number of soldiers categorized as “non-deployable.” Army personnel reported 257,000 acute orthopedic injuries in 2007, up from 247,000 the previous year.

As injuries force more soldiers to stay home, the Army is having a harder time filling units for upcoming deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the service’s vice chief of staff.

“There is no doubt that [in] our non-deployable rates, we’re seeing increase,” he said. “I don’t want to see it grow any more.”

The number of total non-deployables has risen by an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 since 2006, putting the current figure at about 20,000, according to Chiarelli. “That occurs when you run the force at the level we’re running it now,” he said.

“You can’t hump a rucksack at 8,000 to 11,000 feet for 15 months, even at a young age, and not have that have an impact on your body, and we are seeing an increase in muscular-skeletal issues,” Chiarelli told reporters last month.

The top U.S. commander for eastern Afghanistan, where the bulk of U.S. troops in the country operate, has issued a formal request, known as an operational needs statement, for lighter body armor for troops there. The new equipment, called a “plate carrier,” would protect vital organs and weigh less than 20 pounds. It would not include additional pieces that troops currently use to shield sides, shoulders, arms, the groin and other areas — pieces that, with a helmet, weigh about 35 pounds.

Commanders would determine in what circumstances troops could wear the lighter gear, which would make it easier to maneuver when pursuing insurgents over rugged terrain at high altitudes.

“Our dismounted operations are occurring at very high elevations, 10,000 feet and higher, where the air is thinner and it is difficult already to maneuver. You add to that body armor, ammunition and the full load that soldiers carry — it is difficult,” said a military official familiar with the request. “You are operating against an enemy that is very agile — running around in tennis shoes, if that — and they are fleet of foot and can move faster and elude us,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the request had not yet been approved.

Pietro Tonino, chief of sports medicine at Loyola University Health System in suburban Chicago, agreed that the loads troops carry would “absolutely” predispose them to muscular-skeletal injuries over time. “They will get stress fractures or overuse injuries of the back, the legs, the foot,” Tonino said. “Recruits get these stress fractures in their feet all the time just from walking.”

The military has added to its protective gear in recent years to guard against improvised bombs and other threats common in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that has come with a trade-off, as soldiers and Marines routinely carry more than half their body weight into combat.

Individual Marine combat loads — including protective gear, weapons, ammunition, water, food and communications gear — range from 97 to 135 pounds, well over the recommended 50 pounds, a 2007 Navy study found.

In Afghanistan, soldiers routinely carry loads of 130 to 150 pounds for three-day missions, said Jim Stone, acting director of the soldier requirements division at the Army Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga. In Iraq, where patrols are more likely to use vehicles, loads range from 60 to nearly 100 pounds, he said.

“It’s like a horse: We can load you down, and you just don’t last as long,” Stone said.

Injuries — the bulk of them muscular-skeletal — are the main cause of hospitalizations and outpatient visits for active-duty Army soldiers, leading to about 880,000 visits per year, according to Army data. The injuries include sprains, stress fractures, inflammation and pain from repetitive use, and they are most common in the lower back, knees, ankles, shoulders and spine. They are one of the leading reasons that soldiers miss duty, said Col. Barbara Springer, director of rehabilitation under the Army surgeon general.

The overall injury rate for active-duty soldiers has increased slightly to 2.2 injuries per soldier each year, according to Bruce Jones, director of injury prevention at the Army Center for Health Promotion & Preventive Medicine at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Jones confirmed that soldiers “are now carrying heavier loads on our back, so there is a greater opportunity for overuse injuries.” And with the rapid pace of deployments, he said, “you get a chronic back injury, then you don’t recover before the next cycle. . . . You have to go back to theater 100 percent fit,” able to wear the life-saving armor every day.

Sgt. Waarith Abdullah, 34, is struggling to recover at Fort Stewart, Ga., from a lower-back injury that he says was caused by the strain of wearing body armor for long hours each day during three deployments to Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Abdullah’s injury flared up painfully during his most recent 15-month deployment to Balad, Iraq, where he had to maneuver to search vehicles and stand for 12-hour shifts in guard towers.

“That takes a toll on you, because you have to maintain your center of gravity wearing all that stuff and doing your job,” said Abdullah, of Miami. He wore a Kevlar helmet, body armor with four plates, a throat and groin protector, and shoulder pads, while carrying 10 pounds of ammunition, a rifle, a flashlight and other gear.

“At times, I did think the equipment we were wearing was heavier than usual, but I’m a soldier and I still do my job,” he said. “I think it could be lighter and stronger at the same time.”

During the deployment, Abdullah was allowed to go without armor for 30 days, but the pain returned when he started wearing it again. He returned last July to Fort Stewart, where he is in physical therapy. He is still unable to wear armor but hopes to recover in time for his next deployment.

Maj. Neil Vining, an orthopedic surgeon at Winn Army Community Hospital at Fort Stewart, said many of those sidelined have debilitating lower-back pain. “If their condition makes them a danger to themselves or others, if they couldn’t wear their armor or extricate themselves or others from danger, then they are non-deployable,” he said.

After two tours in Iraq, Staff Sgt. James Otto, an Army mechanic, has undergone nine months of physical therapy, traction and medication for back pain. He hopes that in three to four months he will be able to wear his vest again and switch to a different job so he can stay in the Army. In November, an Army board gave him a six-month probationary period in which he has to prove he can “wear the vest and shoot a weapon again,” he said.

Further evidence of the frequency of the injuries, which have forced some to leave the military, has come up in studies of veterans.

Carroll W. McInroe, a former VA primary-care case manager in Washington state, said he has seen such injuries in hundreds of veterans from today’s wars. “Our infantry should not be going into battle carrying 90 to 100 pounds on their backs,” he said. “The human muscular-skeletal system is simply not designed for that much weight, and it will break down over time.”

Army experts say some units are adopting more strenuous exercise routines to prepare soldiers for the strain.

At Fort Drum, N.Y., the 10th Mountain Division readies its troops for Afghanistan using aggressive strength training. Command Sgt. Maj. Joe Montour said the training, which involves pull-ups and other drills while wearing full body armor, helped reduce injuries by 45 percent.

Also, the Army is now deploying a physical therapist with most active-duty combat brigades, said Lt. Col Nikki Butler, a senior rehabilitation specialist. And the Army recently held its first two-day summit devoted to tackling the issue.

“We refer to soldiers as tactical athletes,” Butler said. “You want to help take care of them early so they can get back in the game.”

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Story here.