I'm in Afghanistan - General

Well OP, from one soldier to another, best of luck out there.

OP, do you think the enemy is smart, really?

25b Army E-5/SGT here, what fob are you located on? (nevermind, saw you said baf... nothing special or anything to write home about...) you appear to be airforce... I'm On BAF... Don't forget OpSec btw....

[QUOTE=Ignhelper;29567279]OP, do you think the enemy is smart, really?[/QUOTE] If the enemy wasn't smart the war would of ended sometime ago. [editline]2nd May 2011[/editline] Also OP any advice to people wishing to join the military?

What's the atmosphere like at the moment? Are people celebrating or have you been told to be even more alert?

Now you dont have to scare osama bin laden..

[QUOTE=-n3o-;29568796]If the enemy wasn't smart the war would of ended sometime ago. [editline]2nd May 2011[/editline] Also OP any advice to people wishing to join the military?[/QUOTE] also they got booby traps all up in that shit

[QUOTE=usaokay;29567112]I had no idea. Most answers I received was, "It's confidential" or something.[/QUOTE] I spoke to a guy about it one time and he said after you kill someone you think about their family, friends etc etc and it completely removes the 'pride' that some people seem to get from killing people.

What was your reaction to the news about osama?

Bring Osama's head on your way back :downs:

Best of luck to you OP, it's going to be an ugly couple of days to be deployed.

did you get hurt?

Get out of afghanistan. This is why you started the war, now you should end it. Oh? You can't? Osama's death changed very little? Tough luck.

I have to ask, have you ever interacted with Canadian troops, and what are your impressions of them? I'm curious.

[QUOTE=Luc1f3r;29567329]25b Army E-5/SGT here, what fob are you located on? (nevermind, saw you said baf... nothing special or anything to write home about...) you appear to be airforce... I'm On BAF... Don't forget OpSec btw....[/QUOTE] Keep a memo on OPSEC from our commander on me at all times. I'm not Air Force, I'm Army, Sergeant. [editline]2nd May 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Tac Error;29566655]Bump on this. "How so?" I'd like to know how contemporary OPFOR fights against today's digitized US Army compared to the mechanized, Soviet-style OPFOR of the 1990s against rotating units that fought in Desert Storm, if you've ever done so. Did they use any countermeasures against the UAVs you are using?[/QUOTE] I don't know how they fought the Soviets and I'm not too sure I want to look it up. I think I'll leave this question unanswered for the sake of OPSEC. [editline]2nd May 2011[/editline] PICS INCOMING [editline]2nd May 2011[/editline] [IMG]http://i51.tinypic.com/30ma9g1.jpg[/IMG] The clocks. Yes... the clocks. [IMG]http://i52.tinypic.com/mhbz84.jpg[/IMG] That's me with my nine standing beside that horrible fucking existence called a cot. [IMG]http://i52.tinypic.com/fbepox.jpg[/IMG] Crazy Coke can and me in my gear. [editline]2nd May 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=-n3o-;29568796]If the enemy wasn't smart the war would of ended sometime ago. [editline]2nd May 2011[/editline] Also OP any advice to people wishing to join the military?[/QUOTE] If you wanna join the military, really make sure you're committed to what you sign up for. The last thing a military needs is people failing out of basic and AIT or doing drugs or some stupid bullshit like a DUI. Other than that, keep your head up and your eyes everywhere. Stay alert, stay alive, stay out of trouble.

Are you currently celebrating Bin Laden's death or are you as alert as ever.

[QUOTE=Rex McCoolguy;29572815]Are you currently celebrating Bin Laden's death or are you as alert as ever.[/QUOTE] I'm trying to stay a little more alert than usual. I feel like there might be some kind of massive retaliation to Bin Laden's death.

I don't think so, if they have anything serious, they would have used it by now, wouldn't they?

[QUOTE=TEH_TPMASTER;29572909]I'm trying to stay a little more alert than usual. I feel like there might be some kind of massive retaliation to Bin Laden's death.[/QUOTE] So what was it like the moment you heard he was killed?

[QUOTE=TEH_TPMASTER;29572277]I don't know how they fought the Soviets and I'm not too sure I want to look it up. I think I'll leave this question unanswered for the sake of OPSEC.[/QUOTE] I don't know what OPSEC is like now, but a former Director of Intelligence at the NTC seemed willing to post his interesting "NTC stories" on another forum such as the one below. Of course, that was in a different era and I'm sure OPSEC has changed. On "fighting the Soviets", that stuff can be basically found on many military periodicals digitized free on the internet. That's not really classified information. One I would single out is "Red Thrust Star". [quote]The NTC OPFOR used DRTs (usually pronounced "Dirts"), meaning either "Divisional Reconnaissance Teams" or "Dismounted Reconnaissance Teams", depending on who was doing the 'splaining. Bob Henry can tell you the details of how they operated, but in general, they were dismounted observer teams dropped off on ideal observation locations by BRDMs some hours before the mission, representing reconnaissance patrols from the OPFOR divisional reconnaissance battalion which had passed through the sector at the correct doctrinal time-and-distance interval before the lead elements of the first-echelon motorized rifle regiment which the OPFOR portrayed. These observer teams would hunker down and keep eyes on the Blue defense, or watch for the lead Blue elements in a meeting battle/meeting engagement, report back to the OPFOR "divisional HQ", call for fires, etc.; all quite doctrinally correct, justified by… well, yours truly, most of the time, but with help from subject-matter experts like COL Dave Glantz, LTC Les Grau, and their British counterparts. But over time, the DRTs learned that they could be very useful in taking out some very expensive Blue force assets. Brigades started coming out on rotation with first an attack helicopter company, or sometimes the better part of an aviation battalion in support. Apaches could be lethal in taking down a significant part of the OPFOR regiment before they even got into contact. But their selection of aerial battle positions was predictable, and over time the OPFOR regimental chiefs of intelligence got pretty good at templating where they would be. And lo and behold, these were often the same pieces of ground that made really good DRT OPs: high ground, with good visibility, and hard to get to. So the OPFOR started sending out SA-14 MANPADS (MILES simulators, not the real thing) with the DRTs. Doctrinal? Well, there were enough in the divisional reconnaissance battalion to go around, and the OPFOR was meant to be an intelligent adaptive adversary. I liked it. Blue forces complained bitterly. As a result, AH-64 crews would speed on out to their aerial BPs, completely fail to check the ground to secure the BP (or their ingress and egress routes to and from them), and before they were able to lay some serious scunnion onto the attacking OPFOR, they'd start blinking, having been "killed" by the OPFOR DRTs sitting in the rocks underneath them. So this became a sort of cat-and-mouse game, with the smarter rotational units placing indirect fires on suspected (traditional) DRT locations, or occasionally sending out counter-recon elements. But generally, the OPFOR was pretty successful in taking out a bunch of Apaches most rotations, and their commnders loved it. One colonel who commanded the OPFOR brigade kept a daily tally of the "cost" to the US Army in quarter-million dollar increments (that being the price of an Apache early on). A $1,250,000 or $1,500,000 OPFOR day was pretty successful--and not uncommon. Now you may think that a little macabre. But the sad thing is that the lessons of securing routes and BPs was never adequately learned by the aviation community. So years later, when we went to another desert, we had some really expensive "OPFOR days", along with the loss of lives to go with the real aircraft losses. I do not belittle those tragic losses, but note that they were preventable, if aviators had taken their NTC experience seriously. Right: fires and heaters. Hang on. I'm getting there. A few years along, and some NTC training rotations turned into Advanced Warfighting Experiment rotations, where the Army would demonstrate the goodness of all their electronically connected sensors, command and control systems, and other expensive doohickies. Along with these they brought the Apache Longbow: a lethal nighttime killer, able to see out to ranges from which no enemy could touch them, and able to deliver massed Hellfire volleys… well, you all know the hype. Now the OPFOR knew that Longbow companies were coming out on rotation. Don't let anyone lie to you: the OPFOR commanders who execute the missions don't know the whole scenario. They don't cheat. But they're not stupid. And they knew that the Longbows would be used for the deep fight, preferably to engage the OPFOR regiment while it was still on the march. Now Fort Irwin is big, but not big enough that the OPFOR can come marching from all that many kilometers away. They traditionally parked in battalion-sized laager sites, all arrayed in march formation, typically three company columns abreast, a few kilometers from the Blue line of contact. They'd have barbecues the night before an attack, get some rest, then turn over the engines just before SP time and move out into the attack. They'd been doing it for years, and everyone knew they did, and had a darned good idea where to expect to see them once they moved out. (Unit S-2s came out with diagrams of OPFOR laager sites, as if that would do them any good…) So, the first night the Apaches were likely to get into the fight in their deep battle mode, the OPFOR parked all their tracks up in little wadis--not in their nice neat parking lot formations--and shut them down so they'd be cold. (And it *was* cold: I can testify, as I was heading out to the box at about 0330 that morning in the G-2 open HMMWV.) The attack helicopter company transited over us as we drove out, and we could see them with just marker lights setting up in their aerial BPs, at a good stand-off range from the perfectly templated OPFOR laager sites. When the "battle" commenced, the Longbows opened up on the laager sites with their MILES Hellfires, and suddenly the Eagle (aviation observer-controller) net was full of complaints about how they weren't killing anything. Well, of course, the reason they weren't killing anything was that the OPFOR wasn't there. The OPFOR had had their barbecue, for sure, and had left those cut-down burn barrels, along with enough more to give the signature of three parked MRBs, burning down all night long. So they were nice and toasty to give the perfect heat signature of an entire MRR sitting parked in formation when the Apaches opened up. And meanwhile, of course, the OPFOR was quietly, and with cool engines, just slipping out of their wadis unseen and into the attack, which was completely and devastatingly successful. There are more stories, especially about spoofing RSTA systems instead of crewed weapons systems, but my point is this: when your adversary is aware of your capabilities, it may not take him long to figure out countermeasures, and more importantly, to figure out how to turn your reliance on technology into a vulnerability. Everything the NTC OPFOR ever did that was "sneaky" in this way was stuff that we had dug up out of open-source Soviet military periodicals, journals, and professional books. It wasn't what the Soviets called "native wit"; it was using documented principles and techniques of maskirovka. If our "U.S." OPFOR guys could read these and figure out how to apply them as effective countermeasures, so can any adversary. All technology is vulnerable. Even the Death Star had a badly-designed heat vent! All the enemy has to do is identify it and capitalize on it.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Tac Error;29573976]I don't know what OPSEC is like now, but a former Director of Intelligence at the NTC seemed willing to post his interesting "NTC stories" on another forum such as the one below. Of course, that was in a different era and I'm sure OPSEC has changed.[/QUOTE] I meant the part about the UAS'. Can't really divulge that kind of info. As for NTC, it was long and boring. It was a pretty good simulation for us to get a feel of what a deployment would be like. The shoppettes ran out of stuff pretty quick though and the area I was in didn't have a fucking laundry station. If you didn't bring dip or smokes and you wanted to buy some while you were there, you were shit out of luck. That kind of stuff went out on a bartering system at most times. I got a ton of free gear though. Gloves, Eyepro, Oakleys, holsters, mags. It was a pretty decent experience. I remember we were in the Imagery Workshop working on basic RFI's and one of the UAS pilots downed their fucking system in the middle of the mountains. (Simulators!) We had to clear airspace and send out A-10s and shit to blow it up. We only had like 10 mins. to work on the packets, too. There was another downed UAS (pilot error) and before we could get a convoy package ready, insurgents showed up, put the thing on the back of their truck and drove across the border to Pakistan. (We were watching all this happen on another UAS feed.) It was fucking hilarious.

[QUOTE=TEH_TPMASTER;29572909]I'm trying to stay a little more alert than usual. I feel like there might be some kind of massive retaliation to Bin Laden's death.[/QUOTE] Imagine losing the leader of your squad or whatever They're not going to do anything for quite a bit, they're most likely lost right now (mentally)

Say hi to Bin Laden for me. Oh wait!

[QUOTE=Insane516;29574460]Imagine losing the leader of your squad or whatever They're not going to do anything for quite a bit, they're most likely lost right now (mentally)[/QUOTE] I understand that, but they'll regain their footing and when they do they may decide to launch an offensive. The thing about Afghan people is that they're very easily offended and they almost never take no for an answer.

did you get an ak yet?

Following on from the above question, are you allowed to take the weapons of fallen enemies? If not, what happens to them? I remember my dad got to play around with a Dragunov he got while posted in Kosovo, but a higher-up confiscated it :/

[QUOTE=garychencool;29574835]did you get an ak yet?[/QUOTE] No. The United States Army does not issue AKs.

[QUOTE=TEH_TPMASTER;29574919]No. The United States Army does not issue AKs.[/QUOTE] Is it allowed to pick up a dead man´s weapon?

[QUOTE=Dr. Strangelove;29575036]Is it allowed to pick up a dead man´s weapon?[/QUOTE] Maybe to use under extenuating circumstances, but not to keep.

[QUOTE=BradB;29544801]Is Opium/Heroin production really as widespread as I've heard it is, or is that just a load of crap?[/QUOTE] first off everyone needs to stop making these claims. Poppy production almost completely stopped when the Taliban took over since use of drugs are a slight against Allah. Second the few poppys that are grown now in Afghanistan are all done in relative secret to avoid US and Taliban discovery. [editline]3rd May 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Dr. Strangelove;29575036]Is it allowed to pick up a dead man´s weapon?[/QUOTE] Why would you? [editline]3rd May 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Insane516;29574460]Imagine losing the leader of your squad or whatever They're not going to do anything for quite a bit, they're most likely lost right now (mentally)[/QUOTE] Arguably this will be one of the most violent times in the past few years due to anger and the want for retribution.