Great story from Sean Rayment in the Telegraph about the ‘battle of crossing point one’ in Afghanistan that pitted a platoon of Grenadier Guards against an unknown force of Taleban.
Excellent reporting, however, does anyone else here wonder about a few issues thrown up in the article; lack of Javelins, no close air support and no heliborne counter attack to block and encircle the Taleban.
Nevertheless, an inspiring story and yet another affirmation that the much maligned youth of today are still taking it to the Queen’s enemies, much like their forefathers.
Makes one very proud.
There is not enough detail in the story to know if CAS or artillery was called for and provided at any point in the fighting – it may have been. However with McChrystal’s ‘population centric’ doctrine and tight ROE, it may indeed have been called for, and denied.
Use of highly expensive Javelin’s as “guided” anti-personnel weapons is, as we have all read, a standard tactic. I really think we need those six round 40mm grenade launchers and medium velocity grenades so we can ‘reach out and touch’ the bad guys out to 800m, and do it more often at less expense. Also if we had 120mmm mortars, we could take advantage of US development of precision laser guided mortar rounds to provide pin-point ‘danger close’ support without worrying so much about ROE busting collateral damage.
Bless them though, sounds like it was not a fun place to be for a while !
have you ever watched the you tube videos with the AA12 32 round auto shotgun, gets impressive when they use shotgun sized cartridges with mini frag grenades with stab fins inside effective to 175m, me like!!! no use in this scenario but hey any excuse to mention weaponary
Not sure if the stories been updated. but there is reference to Javelins being used, although one assumes they were in short supply if the forces were required to leave base to grenade an enemy staging point 50 plus metres away.
This fire base is going to be there for, at least several years, if we turn it over to the ANA, as near as damn it forever.
Why arent the corner posts protected by autocannon instead of light machine guns or assault rifles?
Unmaned turrets even.
A UAV used to direct fire from a light mortar would have rendered enemy operations so close to a patrol base utterly impossible.
Is there any chance of us getting getting precision guided mortars similar to the ones the US are getting? A GPS guided 81mm mortar would make a formidable weapon.
Alternatively, a laser guided round for the Carl Gustav 84?