FIRST REPORT I HAD HEARD...... - The Firearms Forum

rooter · 10-16-2009, 05:27 AM

Not Good News for Our Troops‏
US Weapons Failed in 2008 Afghanistan Firefight
Richard Lardner, AP/Yahoo! News
It was chaos during the early morning assault last year on a remote US outpost in Afghanistan and Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine had quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either. When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine US soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents. Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do US armed forces have the best guns money can buy? Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times. A week ago, eight US troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh on Oct. 3, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war...

Read the rest of the story:
http://www.newmediajournal.us/usa/10122009.htm

10-16-2009, 05:27 AM	#1
rooter VMBB Senior Chief Of Staff Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Marty Robbins old hometown, Glendale Arizona--a suburb of Phoenix. Contributor Posts: 9,269	FIRST REPORT I HAD HEARD...... Not Good News for Our Troops‏ US Weapons Failed in 2008 Afghanistan Firefight Richard Lardner, AP/Yahoo! News It was chaos during the early morning assault last year on a remote US outpost in Afghanistan and Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine had quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either. When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine US soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents. Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do US armed forces have the best guns money can buy? Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times. A week ago, eight US troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh on Oct. 3, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war... Read the rest of the story: http://www.newmediajournal.us/usa/10122009.htm __________________ -->