[MLUG - DISCUSSION] a worrisome problem in Iraq: losing helicopters to machine gun fire [POLITICS]

["Jonathan King" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

It's not that I really want to see stuff like this, but I have noticed
that we have recently been having serious issues with getting
helicopters shot down in Iraq. It now appears that the culprit here is
heavy machine gun fire:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16942784/?from=ET

If this is really the case, this is seriously bad news. To a
significant extent, we are depending on close air support, usually
from helicopters, to gain extreme tactical advantage against our
targets in Iraq. If the insurgents ever figure out a way to take down
something like an Apache on a routine basis with relatively small
losses via heavy machine gun fire, we are in Deep Shape. Geek that I
am, I played rather a lot of wargames when I was a teenager. Back in
the day, it was generally thought to be true that the US could hold a
position against an enemy at 1:5 manpower IF the US had air support,
which was a given. In Iraq, it's clear we were able to do even better
than that in the initial invasion, but things have gotten much tougher
during the occupation. In particular, IEDs have become surprisingly
effective against things like trucks and humvees on roads we need to
patrol, which make helicopters increasingly important in many places.
If we were to begin to face serious problems with support and supply
missions conducted with helicopters, the potential casualties we would
face could be a real concern. (This is not to say that the level of
casualties we are facing now is trivial or acceptable, but we could go
from hundreds of deaths per year to thousands, which is essentially
unacceptable given our currently vague mission.)

To put it another way, whatever you think of our current strategy and
tactics in Iraq, I think you should worry if we really continue to
lose 2 Apaches per week, and any increase in that loss rate could make
things much, much worse.

So: does anybody out here have any comforting news on this front?

jking

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