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Thread: The Battle For Cop Keating

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dano5326 View Post
    Another FOB where the low ground was seized, shocker it turned out bad... somebody should have seen a court martial for Keatings drift .. and the litany of other low ground fiasco FOB placements easy for logistics, crap for tactics.
    Jake Tapper's book starts off in 2006 IIRC and every single commanding officer from then on, as they flew into COP Keating for their first time, wondered why the hell it was placed where it was.
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    Reading recent accounts that my son's BN was in, and it jumps out at me, ROE and low ground. Makes me mad our guys died for bad tactical decisions.

    And maybe some complacency. Some big learnings are still heavily emphasized and yet have to be retaught/learned. Like choosing to save weight, but then only having handheld mortars. And then being outranged. (Big difference in accurate range handheld vs with baseplate/legs)

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    Quote Originally Posted by ABNAK View Post
    Jake Tapper's book starts off in 2006 IIRC and every single commanding officer from then on, as they flew into COP Keating for their first time, wondered why the hell it was placed where it was.
    Enemy has the high ground on all four sides, only one road in and out, and CAS 45 mins or so away, what could possibly go wrong?

    But, "Four U.S. Army officers—a captain, a major, a lieutenant colonel, and a colonel—who oversaw COP Keating were admonished or reprimanded for command failures."

    After posting OP, I contacted someone I know who was there the first time they attacked and were repelled, but apparently, they learned from it, and next attack was better coordinated etc.
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    In "Red Platoon," Romesha says that they believed that a lot of the earlier firefights were mainly to learn what to expect.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dano5326 View Post
    Crap positioning of FOB's was themantic in the AO. If you wed the troops to MRAPs and 70lb basic load with armor.. you cannot take the high ground. Poor general-ing to captaining.. but the Generals should own the blame.
    The old (as in waaayyy old) military axiom of "Hold the high ground" rings true. Nonetheless, at Khe Sanh for example, the US held the predominant high ground around the combat base but they still got pummeled. How could the brass expect a similar (although scaled down from Khe Sanh) effort to succeed if they did NOT hold any high ground? Romesha's guys had maybe one OP, manned with a platoon. Hills 881 and 861 around Khe Sanh had company + elements manning them.


    I suspect those placement decisions had more to do with PC purposes than it did with actual military tactics. A "presence" along the road with the village was seen as taking priority over common military sense. The Infantry officer types would have gravitated to higher ground if given their druthers.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ABNAK View Post
    The old (as in waaayyy old) military axiom of "Hold the high ground" rings true. Nonetheless, at Khe Sanh for example, the US held the predominant high ground around the combat base but they still got pummeled. How could the brass expect a similar (although scaled down from Khe Sanh) effort to succeed if they did NOT hold any high ground? Romesha's guys had maybe one OP, manned with a platoon. Hills 881 and 861 around Khe Sanh had company + elements manning them.


    I suspect those placement decisions had more to do with PC purposes than it did with actual military tactics. A "presence" along the road with the village was seen as taking priority over common military sense. The Infantry officer types would have gravitated to higher ground if given their druthers.
    Imagine how much worse Khe Sanh wouldn't been if it was down in a valley like Cop Keating was.

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    Dien Bien Phu is a much better example, it being a geographically low area, with the Viet Cong holding The High Ground. And like Khe Sanh, surrounding it with thousands upon thousands of soldiers.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dano5326 View Post
    Positioning on low ground near a road was clearly not a tactical decision, it was an ease of logistics and lazy minded decision.



    I couldn't even roughly begin to compare Khe San (SP?) with 3+ divisions (NVA divisions being 3-6 regiments.. 1 or 2 being artillery) of well supported NVA against 2 regiments of USMC.... IIRC from war college readings
    Oh I wasn't trying to compare the two, just pointing out that holding some high ground around such a place (other than a platoon-sized OP) was probably the more militarily sound decision. Khe Sanh, although battered, held. Keating was damn near overrun.

    Absolutely, any point I'm trying to make is made with a significantly scaled-back scenario at Keating in mind as compared to Khe Sanh, on both the numbers of US and enemy forces.
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    BRAVO, that is just friggin awesome.

    Since we are talking about Afghanistan, great story from General Keane. Just a little tidbit, he saved the life of Petraeus during a live fire exercise.

    The untold story of General Jack Keane
    Oct. 11, 2018 - 6:00 - General Jack Keane opens up about his time in Afghanistan and more on 'The Story with Martha MacCallum.'
    https://video.foxnews.com/v/58476751...#sp=show-clips

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dano5326 View Post
    Another FOB where the low ground was seized, shocker it turned out bad... somebody should have seen a court martial for Keatings drift .. and the litany of other low ground fiasco FOB placements easy for logistics, crap for tactics.
    I was working in Baghdad at the time this went down. I was amazed that anyone would choose that sight for a COP.
    I believe there was a lot of nonsense bandied back and forth about the performance of the weapons being used. A lot of finger pointing and to little effect in the end.
    It's one thing when bad things happen, it's another when bad things happen due to really bad command decisions.

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