🚀 go-pugleaf

"Brian Daily" <daily.brian@gmail.com.nomaps> wrote in message 
news:rf0oa21r6ebha0fta861jli9pottugjkuk@4ax.com...
[ SNIP ]
> The trip back to base is the scary part. The Taliban try to anticipate the
> return routes. This is forcing the convoys to go off road. The HUGE 
> downside if
> this is the vehicles are taking a shit kicking and spend as much time 
> being
> repaired as they do on patrol. Look for Harper to spend Billion$ very soon 
> on
> replacements.

For a change, that's quite perceptive. You're right, ingress and egress 
routes to and from a patrol base are as dangerous as other restricted areas 
of maneuver.

That being said, infantry do know a little bit about the art of exiting 
from, or returning to, a patrol base. Seeing as how they've been doing it 
for thousands of years. Furthermore, the fact that the enemy may try to 
catch you near base can work against them, since it now fixes their location 
too.

As for vehicles having to go offroad, let me assure you that these are not 
Tahoes or Navigators - you can actually take them offroad, beat the shit out 
of them for a while, and not have them break. Some, if not many, of the 
vehicles in Afghanistan may actually be getting no more of a workout than 
they would if they were still in Canada...exercises back in CONUS tend to 
put more of a beating on trucks, APCs and AFVs than an average pickup will 
see in ten lifetimes. In other words, the vehicle fleet assigned to 
Afghanistan will likely not attrit at a much greater rate (apart from being 
blown up) than vehicles assigned to combat units currently in Canada.

AHS