i've become increasingly interested in counterterrorism tactics and historical lessons in the matter involving both american and other forces. this is probably one of the most on point articles i've found on that issue in afghanistan so i thought i'd share it with ya'll.
The most surprising thing I found: I find this very interesting. I was under the impression that the US had the capability to own the night with the NVG and infared gear we have. I would suppose that if you want to own an area 24x7, you have to have a force capable of holding it in the day, and at night though.
also keep in mind the terrain available. Holding a city at night is a whole mess different than holding a battlefield at night.
Also keep in mind that if we wanted to, we could flatten every structure in Afghanistan and kill every man, woman, child, and goat in the country. It would be awful hard for the terrorists to blend in with the population when all the population is dead. But we don't do that.
This was a problem we had in Iraq and what 'the surge' was about fixing. Petraeus wanted us out in the city, holding down every block, of every neighborhood. It kinda sucked cuz we didn't get to come back in, but after a while we got to do 24 on 24 off which wasn't too bad.
Not really related, but an interesting tidbit I just found out: You know how my beloved railgun will involve no explosives, just an equation of mass and kinetic energy to do damage? It seems we're already using this principle in a decidedly lower-tech approach. Especially in MOUT, where collateral damage is an issue, our CAS fast-movers are dropping concrete bombs--no shrapnel or high-explosives, just 500-1,000 pounds of concrete, delivered at a fairly high speed into a building. I've heard that one will pretty much take out the room it hits and take the whole back side off the building as it goes through it.
