Not A Good Day To Die [Archive] - SUBSIM Radio Room Forums

Fish

11-26-05, 02:58 PM

Just found this review on Amazon:

An Excellent First Hand Account, but Hard to Follow Military Acronyms and Jargon, October 4, 2005
Reviewer: Charlie Brown (Saudi Arabia) - See all my reviews
This is a superb book about the fateful Operation Anaconda in the mountains of Afghanistan. As the author mentioned, it was a very complex set of events and the book must have been extremely difficult to write. Combat operations are like car wrecks, there are as many perspectives as witnesses. War is a dynamic set of events that are filled with improbable occurrences. For this reason it is most important to have excellent communication and coordination. During this operation both communication and coordination were lacking. This starts from the top on down. The President and the Secretary of Defense (SecDEf ) are to blame in both planning and distracting the top generals from combat operations. As William Kristol of the Weekly Standard put it, Rumsfeld's fundamental error is that his theory about the military is at odds with the president's geopolitical strategy. He wants this light, transformed military, but there is a real war to win, which involves using many troops and equipment to rebuild a critical region of the world. Thus the reluctance of the high command to commit the appropriate number of conventional troops and assets can be traced to this fundamental error Kristol refers. The book reflects this fact.

A brief summary of significant items of critical concern and lessons to be learned are as follows:

1. Overall strategy was that U.S. commanders were reluctant to put many American troops on the ground and had relied on their Afghan allies backed up by Special Forces. The American's faith were misplaced and the Afghan allies were not sufficient to block Osama bin Laden and his henchmen from escaping. Ref. page 10.
2. General Franks declined to commit conventional troops to stop enemy fighters from escaping, causing the fight to slip through Hagenbeck's fingers. Ref. page 12.
3. Special Forces had been created as part of the Army since 1952 and were treated as a bastard child. This did not keep CENTCOM from ensnaring Special Forces in a confusing and often conflicting chain of command that had nearly disastrous results. Ref. page 14.
4. There was no coordination between the Navy Seals and the Army Rangers. Both are excellent in their environments, but they operate differently.
5. The book is filled with complaints of lack of air support. On page 136 the author writes about Lieutenant General Chuck Wald, being the CFACC commander being replaced by Lieutenant General T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley. Wald had a background of flying the F-15E Strike Eagle, which is a ground attack role, and he understood the complex business of close air support. Moseley came from flying the F-15C, an air superiority fighter who had no experience in ground support. Wald had done an outstanding job and the change of commanders was made during the very complex, never-before-done operation in Afghanistan.
6. To augment the situation furthermore, Moseley and the CFLCC commander, Lieutenant Mikolashek had a personality conflict that trickled down through their respective organizations. To make matters worse, during the critical last week of February, when Moseley should have been working with Mikolashek's and Hagenbeck's headquarters, Moseley was not at his desk at Prince Sultan Air Base, but was touring capitals in the CENTCOM region laying the diplomatic groundwork for the war with Iraq (page 271).
7. As the author points out on page 132, there is an advantage to ground troops having artillery, especially if air support is in question. Especially during the daytime operations when the AC-130s could not operate and the enemy was the most active. At least a few artillery pieces would have relieved the burden of the daytime enemy attacks.
8. The Pentagon thinking that the war in Afghanistan was all but won and victory was assured. The belief was that the enemy resistance had all but collapsed. Intelligence agencies assessed that the enemy would not stand and fight (page 120).
9. This resulted in a loose organization being assembled with no definite chain of command and conflicting goals, operation tactics, and missions.
10. The commanders in the field had limited exposure to CENTCOM in Tampa, Florida because of morning and afternoon meeting with SecDEf every morning and afternoon. The field commanders were not allowed to communicate with the CENTCOM starting two ours before the meeting, making most of the day unavailable to the field commanders.
11. On page 303 the author describes the Air Force general Trebon, who had never commanded a ground combat operation before, was making tactical reconnaissance decisions.
12. The TF Blue officer Lieutenant Commander Vic Hyder is described on pages 300-323 as the one who made the fateful mistake of Takur Ghar. The author pointed out that Hyder by-passed Lt. Col. Pete Blaber, who was still in command of the APO.

The author looses one star with use of acronyms and military jargon that is hard to follow. The reader must read halfway through the book to figure some of the terms and references. For the people involved directly in the operation, these terms would probably be easy to comprehend. This is understandable trying to write about such a complex operation with so many misfires and events. I highly recommend this book for everyone trying to understand what is often not reported in the news. The author did an excellent job of piecing together a jigsaw puzzle with a million pieces.