UK Commits 45 Commando to Afghan War

[Self Loading Freight]

The rumour hereabouts -- and I don't think it's anything more than people thinking out loud -- is that the deployment is there by way of a deal to let Tone keep out of the forthcoming Baghdad Bonanza without undue embarrasment.. .. .(as a side effect, I find that just murmuring "The Redcoats are coming" to gung-ho colonials is wonderfully relaxing.). .. .R

[exrotarybooty]

Thanks to all you guys who have put the record straight about the Royal Marines Commandos being part of the Navy and not the Army, the fact that it's Four Five Commando and not any other combination, and the fact that they are based and train in Scotland, Norway, Oman .....etc. The were in the Suez landings in November 1956, served in Aden from 1961 until the withdrawal, they Yomped to Stanley in the Falklands War, and are now our Mountain and Arctic Warfare specialist unit. I served 3 tours in Four Five and I watch this latest deployment with a lump in my throat as 'here we go again'. Let's hope it is only the Taliban they have to worry about and not 'Blue on Blue'. Thanks again guys.

[jockspice]

JHC. .A most sensible and blimmin' true post! We need to get it sorted PDQ. Disappointed with the lack of crab bashing though........... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />

[cobaltfrog]

Jockspice you are well I trust in the ivory towers!. .Agree with Junglie and JHC, but a decision that is common sense....Ummm.........How long will that last I wonder!

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Common Sense, nah we'll never get that.

After all, how many defence related decisions taken recently make common sense?

[A Civilian]

There's a very interesting article in the sunday times today written by John Barry who was the commanding officer of the Mountain & Artic Warfare unit of 3 commando.. .. .Its called 'Britians elite commandos lack the right altitude to take on Al-Qaeda'. .. .Unfortunatly I cannot find a link to post it here but in it he talks about how only 50 out of 1700 troops have ever been up to 10,000 ft befor. How the unit has not been in combat since the falklands, the lack of equipment that would be needed & most importantly how only a very tiny percentage of them have ever been to the alps for MW training.. .. .I must admit when I saw a prior post saying they spend 3 months every year in Norweign its sounded like so much s$%t but I kept quite as i didnt have any other information, but I mean do their wives and girlfriends get locked up in a nunnery whilist their away <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> . .. .They may be described as the best in the world in the press but its obvious to most people that we simply cannot do the job that the've been asigned todo.

[ORAC]

Allow me:. .<a href="http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,178-245747,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,178-245747,00.html</a>. .. .Sunday Times:. .March 24, 2002. .. . Britain’s elite commandos lack the right altitude to take on Al-Qaeda . .. . Billed as crack mountain troops, the marines lack the training for the task ahead, writes their former instructing officer John Barry .. . . .Some time soon, but not too soon we hope, those members of the Taliban or Al-Qaeda who have stayed for the fight will be squinting through their sights at a new enemy: 3 Commando Brigade and the boys of 45 Commando Royal Marines. . .As they wait and watch and shoot, they may have time to ponder why this new force has replaced the last one they encountered — the US army in differing forms, from mountain troops to various incarnations of special forces, with their assembled ranks of multinational allies. . .. .If they had seen last week’s newspapers or heard any gossip from local informers, they would be falling off their sandals in whatever passes for mirth among that bleak band at the West’s received wisdom. Wednesday March 20: “The Ministry of Defence said that the Americans had specifically asked for the Royal Marines because of their mountain warfare capabilities. American troops have had problems fighting at high altitude.” If this is indeed what the Ministry of Defence and the Americans said or thought, then it is folly of the highest order. . .. .Apply a little rigour; try scepticism —- or even some common sense: are Americans, in some way, physiologically different from Britons? Are our mountains bigger than theirs? Is there any rational reason to suppose that our boys will be fleeter at 12,000ft than theirs? The answers are no, no and no. Only one thing can equip men to live and fight at altitude and that’s altitude — at least a month of it. . .. .The Afghans have it in spades, with mountains up to 24,557ft; the Americans have it at home in plenty, if they want it (up to 20,320ft) and we have it not at all (4,406ft at home or 15,808ft for the tiny percentage of 3 Commando Brigade who have trained in the Alps). . .. .So which fool is it who says our boys will skirmish and dash and dot it, rock to rock, with any greater alacrity than the Americans? Who is it that serves this drivel to us and on whose authority? I help to pay the bill. I’d like to know. . .. .I’ll accept that 45 Commando, to a man, can hop the heather at sea level with the grace of 1,000 startled stags; but unleash them at Bagram airfield (at roughly 7,000ft), give them a 30- second run and ask how they feel and they will answer, if they can answer, a breathless “knackered”. . .. .Ask how many of the new deployment have ever been above 10,000ft, let alone trained and spent time there. I will bet my credibility and my military pension on no more than 50 out of 1,700. . .. .Then ask Lennox Lewis whether the altitude matters. He turned up to fight in Johannesburg (at about 5,000ft) a mere two days before the bout and was knocked witless by a journeyman slugger who had done some homework and got there a month earlier. A punch knocked Lewis out, but it was altitude and ignorance that undid him. . .. .So will somebody assure us that our ability to fight at altitude was not the reason for our invitation? We’re not up to the job — not yet awhile, not for a month or more. The enemy can fight and is already somewhere near the top of the hill. We start near the bottom. . .. .There’s yet more unreason. We are told that 45 Commando are the world’s best, the toughest of the tough. How do we know? They haven’t fought anyone for 20 years (the enemy then were conscripts, dragged from sunny Argentina and dumped in the sub-arctic Falklands; deserted by their officers, their morale in their boots). Such a claim is arrant twaddle. My heart says they’re the best. My head can only hope they are. We simply don’t know. . .. .Of more certain standing are the arms they will be carrying. I read this week that we have “formidable weapons”. Well, our rifles are M16s, which are good, and SA80s which, now that many millions have been spent by Heckler & Koch in rejigging them, are serviceable — we hope. They have yet to be tested in that peculiar snow/dust environment. . .. .The other side have AK- 47s, which are better. Others have singled out our 105mm howitzers for loyal praise. These are helicopter-portable weapons and can get places, one marine explained this week. What he would have liked to have said, had he not been constrained by considerations of morale and politics, is that the 105mm, for all its accuracy, is a pea-shooter that delivers a twopenny-banger-sized plop. . .. .What he really wants is the American 155mm howitzer with a bang three times as big. But the trouble is that our helicopters can’t lift them. Instead, we will have to rely on the Americans to back us up from the air. Even then, evidence from Operation Anaconda suggests that it takes more than big bangs to discomfort or dislodge the heavily entrenched Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters from their stone camps and caves. . .. .It is what we are not being told that I want to know. Why, really, are we being called in? What is it that we think we can do that the Americans cannot? How long are we going for? The answers are far from certain, but idle boasts about our force’s capability serve no favours in the long run, even if they ease the political mood back home. . .. .I’m sure 45 Commando are, by any standards, good. Maybe they are the best. They will shoot straight, they will be well trained and well led. They will fight. In any even half-conventional battle at normal altitudes I would back them — heart and head — against anyone. But what they need now is time: time for the boys to breathe thin air; time for their red blood corpuscles to multiply as their bodies acclimatise, a bit of time before they start up that hill. . .. .Looking at this week’s photographs of fresh-faced lads, their green berets folded with cock-skewed elan across the forehead, evoked a full heart’s flush of fond memories: how I wish I could be with them. But I also wish someone would tell it straight. . .. .I want nothing more than for my concerns to be proved wrong, as old farts often are; wrong like Tony Benn on the Falklands; wrong like Denis Healey on the Gulf war. Plain wrong. . .. .John Barry is a former commanding officer of the Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre, responsible for training 3 Commando.

[jockspice]

cobaltfrog. .there's bug-ger all ivory about these towers! Cheap 1970 imitation plastic <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" /> all we can afford

[cobaltfrog]

He He He! Serves you right for being a war mungering HWI! could always go and work in the newly refurbished MOD!!....OR B!

[jockspice]

or maybe I could do what you are doing........... .what are you doing? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Razz]" src="tongue.gif" /> . .What DO you do?!!!?. .Only in jest, mate - drop in for a cuppa next time you are around and we could talk the dreams of having good equipment.... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />

[jungly]

sounds like its all fun and games in blighty.... junglie, m'ol namesake.... hows life in the valley?. .. .i have met john barry.... he really knows his business and has more time in the himilayas, alps and bardufoss than the rest of us put together.. .. .arctic ops are one thing (and it would be hard to find better training) but doing it at 10000AMSL is a new ball game.. .. .good luck 45CDO.. .. .see the rest of you at the jctp.