Kurdish Mad Max

[August]

The more I hear about them the more I like the Kurds...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2773452/The-REAL-road-warriors-Mad-Max-battle-buses-tanks-built-Kurdish-fighters-repel-ISIS-soldiers-Syria.html



The REAL road warriors: 'Mad Max' battle buses and tanks built by Kurdish fighters to repel ISIS soldiers in Syria.


<li class="">Peshmerga troops converted old tractors and lorries into military vehicles<li class="">They are badly out-gunned by ISIS who seized weapons from the Iraqi army<li class="">In order to properly defend themselves, Kurds armoured their own vehicles<li class="">Result is a fleet of elaborately designed but well-defended battle buses<li class="">The vehicles bear a close resemblance to the vehicles in 1979 film Mad Max


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/09/29/1411991705699_wps_9_Pic_shows_Kurdish_forces_.jpg

[Buddahaid]

I loved the lorry with the cattle guard. :o

[Betonov]

Love the elaborate decorations :)

[Stealhead]

Neat artilce but they have Mad Max and Mad Max 2(akaThe Road Warrior)confused. The second film featured kitbashed trucks it was released in 1981 not 1979. The cars in Mad Max where more or less standard rides. The Kurds are also making real machines and not some hollywood prop.

Some remind me of early armored cars circa 1900~1930. The Mack with cow catcher is from the movie Buddahaid. Yellow thing is a BTR-60 or 70 with home made skirt armor. A few appear to have salavaged BTR or BRD turrets.

[Skybird]

Before anything else, most of these vehicles show how desperate their situation is.

Germany has delivered them some palettes of G3 rifles. It got reprted yesterday that the Kurds roll their eyes, saying they have AK47 already - more reliable, more precise, lighter in weight (say them, not me).

The Milan missiles they got probably are the only useful German contribution after the many bigmouthed promises they got from us.

Oh, and btw, it also gets reported that the IS and the Al Nusra front are uniting due to the pressure from US bombing raids. Before, they were enemies.

Sooner or later the American bombers wilol have run out of hard targets. And what then?

[August]

Well if by hard targets you mean their armor and artillery then it will have gone a long way to reducing their combat effectiveness.

[Stealhead]

Those things would get blown away by tank or AFV anyway. Its mainly light infantry which is not so easy to wipe via the current methods.

[Armistead]

I really hope IS doesn't take Kobani {thinks that's how it's spelled} in northern Syria. The Kurdish women are doing a lot of the fighting. Seems we're not giving any or much air support due to so called close combat and no eyes on the ground. This could turn into a slaughter if the Kurds can't hold them off. Turkey needs to be kicked out of NATO.

[Schroeder]

I really hope IS doesn't Kobani {thinks that's how it's spelled} in northern Syria. The Kurdish women are doing a lot of the fighting. Seems we're not giving any or much air support due to so called close combat and no eyes on the ground.
This is what I didn't understand from the beginning. If there was this urgency to support the Kurds in their fight then why not flying much more relief attacks on IS troops getting close to Kurdish territory? I mean a week ago they were still some miles away from that city. Instead they bomb oil facilities which will definitely help in the long run (in more than one way, I bet all oil producing nations were cheering that these facilities got taken out as they can now raise prices again because of the "shortage") but won't do much to help the Kurds who are already fighting for their bare lives RIGHT NOW. I think we need some A10s down there.:shifty:

[Jimbuna]

The Kurds are in the forefront of fighting IS and as such should be given maximum support....bloody disgraceful the way the west are treating them but I suspect the Iraqi government have a majority say in where the military assistance goes :nope:

[Skybird]

Well if by hard targets you mean their armor and artillery then it will have gone a long way to reducing their combat effectiveness.
This, but also troops amassed on the ground, allowing anti-personnel cluster bombing of any kind. IS already has adapted to the thread from air by the typicla means of asymmetraicla warfare tactis: melting into the civilian infrastructure and population, avoiding exposure to the open blue sky where possible, avoiding huge gatherings of fighters on the ground, no vehicle columns.

Its the same problem for the Air Force as what the Israelis faced in their past two wars in Gaza and Lebanon: they ran out of targets. And that reduced the importance of their superior air force as well. And then you have to make a decision: either to go in with boots on the ground, or not.

The alternative would be what Assad is doing: dropping barrel bombs on civilian city districts without discriminating between civilian residents and fighters. That is brutal, but this shows one thing about Assad: that he intends to win, no compromise accepted. The American/Western approach now, on the other hand, may be showing a civilised attitude, a temper moderated by reason and morals. But it is so in different and indetermined that I cannot see it achieving what Obama claims he wants to achieve.

Wait - has there even been clear despriptions of war objectives given so far, have they even described the criteria by which the war's objectives will be seen as achieved and the whole thing seen as a victory so that one will disengage again fro further military engagement? Or was it just blind activism that made them headjump into the pool once again without checking first whether there is water in it or not?

[Skybird]

The Kurds are in the forefront of fighting IS and as such should be given maximum support....bloody disgraceful the way the west are treating them but I suspect the Iraqi government have a majority say in where the military assistance goes :nope:
That is correct, and since years they make sure that the Kurds do not get weapons that would indeed turn them into a stronger force. Corruption by individuals not even counted.

[Catfish]

Just refusing to sell IS Honda spare parts will probably stop them, finally :hmm2:

[Betonov]

Just refusing to sell IS Honda spare parts will probably stop them, finally :hmm2:

Unfortunately those are older models that can be fixed with iron water pipes and some steel plates

[Armistead]

Some of you may have caught the battle with the Kurds and IS at Kobani with CNN news reporting live and with their cams you could see IS far on the ridge line. Question is why weren't we bombing and the answer was no forward spotters. The CNN man reporting said he could spot easily:O:

It wouldn't surprise me if Obama is going hawkish before the election. Geesh, just listen to the crap coming out of Bidens mouth {kill them and send them all to hell speech.} Obama may go right back to being a dove once the election's over.

I don't think anyone wants the mess of taking back the same cities we fought so hard over. The Iraq govt. is still playing games and if anything this will cause further division. If we do go back in, like it or not we have to keep large bases there for decades.

Let's do what Longstreet would do, take up a good defensive position between Syria and Iraq and split the two nations. There's got to be some plan where we would use boots without going back into these cities and cause them serious issue or least contain them until someone decides how to take them back.

[Aktungbby]

The problem there is which Kurds?
They are not simply all Kurds, you have good Kurds and bad Kurds, you have friendly Kurds and nasty Kurds. So in reality the arm the Kurds protect the Kurds policies of the past have come full circle and you are now fighting against people you helped set up in the first place.:hmmm:
Indeed! a lesson not lost on Richard the LionHeart...Saladin was a Kurd, born in Tikrit, same as our old buddy Saddam Hussein...nothing changes. Did note the flair and design of the improvised vehicles though- morale seems to be unflagging, considering ISIS doesn't treat prisoners very well...:doh:

[Aktungbby]

...nothing changes.

Well...my thoughts on the picture August posted were... high, unstable, slow, noisy and vulnerable.

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/germany/Sturmpanzerwagen_A7V.png (http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww1/germany/Sturmpanzerwagen_A7V_HD.jpg)http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/09/29/1411991791097_Image_galleryImage_Pic_shows_Kurdish _forces_.JPG:dead: PRECISELY!

[Oberon]

I must admit, my thoughts went back a little further than that:

http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/lookandlearn-preview/M/M804/M804881-03.jpg

[Armistead]

The problem there is which Kurds?
:

A bad Kurd compared to IS is like a bad day fishing.....

[August]

Every human society has it's bad element and the Kurds are no different but they compare pretty favorably to the Sunnis and Shiites.

[Tchocky]

Well that's a little disingenuous I think, August. Still correct though. The Kurds have the advantage of being relatively unaffected by the unnecessarily divisive Maliki government, meaning they're better equipped to act in unison than the disastrous Iraqi army.

It remains to be seen whether the new Iraqi government can avoid the mistakes of the previous one regarding national unity and cohesive military operations. Strangely enough the same can be said for the Afghan government.

Regarding IS, who knows. The counter-human demands a response, unfortunately they have arisen in a situation that can have no winners, yet one that punishes disengagement even more harshly.

[Armistead]

So you missed the whole heritage thing?
You can trace IS back to the Kurds:yep:
You really are missing the whole thing, rather like August is with this line.....
Kurds are mainly Sunni with some Shiites thrown in for regional balance.
The Kurdish Salafists who became Ansar in Iraq after their return from Afghanistan then became ISIL which became ISIS which became IS.

Don't care what you trace them back to, but what and where they stand now. I could trace you back to......how far in the evolution process should we go.:O:

[Aktungbby]

I could trace you back to......how far in the evolution process should we go.:O:

40,000BC :Dhttp://lowres.cartoonstock.com/history-politician-neanderthal-cavemen-compromise-compromising-wmi110209_low.jpg

[Oberon]

Baby steps Tribes, we've managed to go from 'all Muslims are evil' to 'Actually, those Muslims are alright'. I'd call that progress...

[August]

Baby steps Tribes, we've managed to go from 'all Muslims are evil' to 'Actually, those Muslims are alright'. I'd call that progress...

Are you talking about me? Care to show me where I have said anything like that?

[Oberon]

Are you talking about me? Care to show me where I have said anything like that?

Not you. :03: The mood of the board in general though.

[Armistead]

So you don't know what you are talking about at all.:yep:
Unless of course you can deliver on what a random dozen Kurdish groups are currently for and what they are against, who are they fighting and who are they supporting.
Because it appears that "Kurd" has become some sort of magic word for you which you apply without any understanding at all.

Kinda like August thinking that Kurds are neither Sunni or Shia but are some sort of magic muslims instead.

So once again in very easy words as you have great difficulty understanding this very simple thing, the crazy salafist Kurds fighting for an Islamic State and global caliphate are still crazy salafists and still kurds.

Stop Kurding around....

[Oberon]

Reminds me when a BBC newsreader got a little confused when referring to Turkish Kurds...getting the first letter of each word mixed. :hmmm: :03:

[Armistead]

No progress Oberon.
Its gone from 'all muslims are extremists and evil' to 'those muslim extremists are nice because they are kurds and kurds are magic'.
Progress would be getting rid of the blanket statements and dealing with specifics.

I've never said all Muslims are evil, I said Islam based on it books is evil and that radical groups actually give us a pure true version of Islam. It's been the same with most religions, but most have reformed. While the Kurds are made up of numerous religions, they are mostly Muslim. The issue is we really don't have good players, we have bad and worse and right now the Kurds fighting IS is the better choice.

The better choice would be to let the Muslims continue to keep killing each other in mass and not take sides, but they all seem to enjoy supporting terror against the world in one form or the other and of course they sit on a lot of oil.
As long as we defend Israel, we'll be involved there.

[Dread Knot]

The better choice would be to let the Muslims continue to keep killing each other in mass and not take sides, but they all seem to enjoy supporting terror against the world in one form or the other and of course they sit on a lot of oil.
As long as we defend Israel, we'll be involved there.


The reason that ISIS feels so free to kill other Muslims is that they believe anybody who doesn't follow their particular fundamentalist flavor of Islam isn't a Muslim, but an infidel, or even worse, an apostate. And therefore free game.

It's basically the "No True Scotsman" fallacy on all sides, but with the added bonus of suicide bombings and beheadings.

It seems to me that a believer of any faith who feels the need to hasten God's judgment is saying deep down they don't trust God to do the job properly or soon enough. Which you would think would annoy God no end.

[Armistead]

But you did.:yep:
Your position is that there are no moderate muslims, there is no reform in Islam


Which Kurds?

Can't quote on this Chromebook for some reason, so these two.

I've never said Islam can't be reformed, I've always said that is the goal. Yes, based on it's books and teachings....it is evil. Even at it's best, it hardly allows civil rights. Fact is, overall, I don't see a lot of moderates, cept those that use Islam as more a devotional way in secular nations like the US.


"Which Kurds?" any Kurd killing IS......how can I be more clear?

[Armistead]

You can be more clear by being specific, at the moment you are saying that one set of crazy fundamentalists are better than the other crazy fundamentalists because they are fighting the ones you have heard of, despite the fact that their goal is identical.

Yep, that's what I said...:up: Right now one set is better than the other...:yeah:

[Armistead]

Which is why you make no sense, two piles of identical excrement are two piles of identical excrement.
Putting one on your plate because you think the other is unpalatable still leaves you eating the same crap.


That's your opinion, not mine.....and personally, I've never tasted your opinion, but I'll take your word on it that it's unpalatable like crap....

[Armistead]

Yep its my opinion, whereas your opinion on the subject seems to be based on absolutely nothing but a blind belief in magic Kurds which you think are all the same.

Here you go again, putting words in my mouth based on what you think I believe.

So, where did I say they were all the same? I, in fact agreed with you they're not, bad and worse, but I prefer the ones killing IS. They're numerous sects of Kurds that don't follow Islam....and they've got some bad arse women fighters....a ticket s8 to hell to be killed by one, ...so they say.

I believe the US does list some Kurdish groups as terrorist, but I don't recall one ever planning to attack the US. Not saying one doesn't exist.....does it?

[Stealhead]

A Kurdish group in southern Turkey known as the PKK has targeted and killed US service members serving in Turkey in the past. Last kill was USAF MSGT they put a bomb on the drive of his truck a wire was connected to the drive shaft as the truck drove it pulled arming pin. Happened in the late 90's. Had to be careful off base where you went. Actually got saved from trouble myself once by a friendly Kurd in Turkey.

[Armistead]

A Kurdish group in southern Turkey known as the PKK has targeted and killed US service members serving in Turkey in the past. Last kill was USAF MSGT they put a bomb on the drive of his truck a wire was connected to the drive shaft as the truck drove it pulled arming pin. Happened in the late 90's. Had to be careful off base where you went. Actually got saved from trouble myself once by a friendly Kurd in Turkey.

Couldn't find anything on this, but Turkey and the Kurds, mainly PKK have been going at it for a long time. However, I've never heard of a Kurdish group promoting the destruction of the US through terror. I think now the PKK are fighting IS, while Turkey, a member of NATO aren't doing crap....and we know why.

Interesting war concepts going on in the ME, being both allied and enemy with differing groups...

Meanwhile, the air campaign ain't doing a thing. IS reported about 8 miles from Baghdad. Screw it, let them have at it.....

[Stealhead]

Couldn't find anything on this, but Turkey and the Kurds, mainly PKK have been going at it for a long time. However, I've never heard of a Kurdish group promoting the destruction of the US through terror. I think now the PKK are fighting IS, while Turkey, a member of NATO aren't doing crap....and we know why.

Interesting war concepts going on in the ME, being both allied and enemy with differing groups...

Meanwhile, the air campaign ain't doing a thing. IS reported about 8 miles from Baghdad. Screw it, let them have at it.....


Well it is true. On several occations in 2000 and 2001 the threat condtion at US bases both Germany and Turkey was raised to actionable intel that PKK might attack. Spent over four years in Germany and did several TDY to Incrilk(our major air base in TK).
The PKK is one of the groups fighting ISIL dose that make them trustworthy? I think not.

[Armistead]

Well it is true. On several occations in 2000 and 2001 the threat condtion at US bases both Germany and Turkey was raised to actionable intel that PKK might attack. Spent over four years in Germany and did several TDY to Incrilk(our major air base in TK).
The PKK is one of the groups fighting ISIL dose that make them trustworthy? I think not.

No, I understand the PKK being at war with Turkey and us being an ally of Turkey certainly put us in harms way.....in Turkey. My point, what Kurdish terror group has stated it's at war with America?

For the most part, it seems America will be at war with those in power in the ME. We support groups fighting these powers, if they win, then they become the cruel unjust power that we fight. We can't solve this complex religious war. It seems it serves our interest to keep them warring with each other. I'm not saying we're the cause of it, they're gonna fight regardless. but we pick sides. We need to start embracing the cruel dictators like Saddam and work with them. Eventually we're gonna see a major war involving the world, just a matter of time...

[Armistead]

Ansar al-islam...they have been mentioned in the topic so you must have heard of them.


Have they attacked America? Heard of numerous sects, so many hard to keep up with them all. I thought they split into two groups, but IDK....Right now we have to fight IS, least help them fight each other. We've already armed IS and the Iraqi army, now we need to arm the Kurds the same. Make it fair. Then we can deal with what's left....