The US Army Yesterday

The US Army Today

Learning From the War in Sri Lanka

This is a copy of a post I did over at Redneck's Revenge

From www.janes.com

In a feature for Jane’s Navy International, Tim Fish reports: “ Bringing the conflict to a conclusion after 30 years of war would not have been possible without the Sri Lanka Navy (SLN)”.

In order to counter the LTTE and its Sea Tiger cadres, the SLN developed three categories of small craft and associated warfighting tactics as part of a Small Boats Concept, which was a major turning point in the progress of the war against the separatist organisation. The Small Boats Concept effectively copied the Sea Tigers’ asymmetric tactics, but on a much larger scale.

With rudimentary shipbuilding facilities, Sri Lanka manufactured 150 or more of these small Inshore Patrol Craft (IPCs) and employed them in infantry-style tactics to gain the ascendancy over swarms of Sea Tiger attack craft and suicide boats.
However, as well as operating in littoral waters, the SLN proved that it could also take the fight to the LTTE far over the horizon, sinking eight warehouse ships up to 2,000 n miles from Sri Lanka.

The money quote here is, "The Small Boats Concept effectively copied the Sea Tigers’ asymmetric tactics, but on a much larger scale."

If the enemy appears to be winning why not study his tactics and copy them but on a much larger scale?

The picture above is of a recently captured Tamil Tiger submarine painted with cute fish eyes. To view more pictures of captured Tamil Tiger assets click here.

Most readers should be aware that the Tamil Tigers are nearing defeat now holding only a strip of jungle about the size of Manhattan. Check out the map and the small dot of red shown in the inset.

Gaza and Jihad

Across the Muslim world we are constantly hearing the call for jihad against the West. After 911 this was cause for some considerable concern and the threat was taken seriously with jihad being delivered right back at ya. Yet George Bush was criticized severely for using the word ‘crusade’ in one of his speeches just prior to his military response to the jihad.

Has there ever been a war in history quite like this one? Do they want their jihad or not? People of Gaza this is what jihad looks like. You cannot fire thousands of missiles at your neighbour and constantly call for jihad without repercussions.

I wonder what a medieval soldier or even a WW2 general would think of the goings on in Gaza? I suspect their solution would be to lay siege to the cities, cut off supplies of food and water and bombard the infrastructure mercilessly until the population gives up it’s leadership. Wouldn’t that be sensible? Shouldn’t the UN be supportive of this strategy? After all the random bombardment of civilian centres by Hamas is undoubtedly a war- crime that should not go unpunished. The Hamas leadership could even be sent to the Hague for a fair trial – how civilized would that be? Wouldn’t a ceasefire now just prolong the conflict?

Somewhere between medieval times and now a large amount of common sense has been lost.