🚀 go-pugleaf

"Arved Sandstrom" <asandstrom@accesswave.ca> wrote in message
news:syXqg.97410$I61.29978@clgrps13...
> "Brian Daily" <daily.brian@gmail.com.nomaps> wrote in message
> news:rf0oa21r6ebha0fta861jli9pottugjkuk@4ax.com...
> [ SNIP ]
> > The trip back to base is the scary part. The Taliban try to anticipate the
> > return routes. This is forcing the convoys to go off road. The HUGE
> > downside if
> > this is the vehicles are taking a shit kicking and spend as much time
> > being
> > repaired as they do on patrol. Look for Harper to spend Billion$ 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.

A drivers' course will put a heck of a lot more wear and tear on vehicles than
a deployment, and a unit typically runs two of those a year. In a deployment
like ARCHER, VOR rate is important -- I should say critical; I suspect that
troops, NCOs and officers are careful about how "Stables" is done.

All the same, I suspect Brian is actually right about the idea of a follow-on
buy to replace operational losses. I am sure, however, that the price he
predicts will be off by two orders of magnitude.
-- 
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)