Quote:
Posted by Blutocracy
As Gen. Shinseki noted, air munitions cannot be used in close proximity to friendly troops. In the first few days of Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, the United States suffered 28 of 36 casualties due to indirect fire from enemy mortars, he said on May 16. Had it been available, the United States "would have used" cannon artillery with long reach to eliminate the enemy mortars, he said.
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General Tommy Franks (the commander of the Afganistan conflict) disarees with General Shinseki's assesment.
General Tommy Franks has come under some critisism (by arm chair Generals and by some members of the Armed Forces Committee) for making a decision not to transport any artillery to Afganistan during the early operations. He made the decision to use heavy mortars because of the available airlift and the size of even small artillery as well as the terrain they would be operating in. He denies that artillery would have been useful in any of the operations that were conducted and stated that the heavy mortars were adequate for the job at hand.
He also is in favor of the cancellation of the Crusader for a number of reasons, with the primary reason being its size. We only have a certain airlift and sea lift capability and in todays slimmed down mobile forces, it is his considered opinon that the Crusader does not have a role to play and there are better alternatives.
It is natural that their is controversy over the decision, but battlefield commanders are in a better position to know what is needed on the battlefield than some arm chair General or some Congressman that probably has not ever spent a day in the military.