Myths About Afghanistan
Victor Davis Hanson on whether Afghanistan is really the "graveyard of empires ..."
Following up on Kamdesh Troops Were Sitting Ducks: The Importance of Terrain, this video is a stark reminder of just where COP Keating was located. They were completely walled-in by the terrain. Perhaps the ease of vehicle movement and delivery of logistics was the reason for locating COP Keating where they did. But they didn’t have even a single hill which abuts the COP (or or on which the COP is at least partially built). Every direction is up. It would have been better to have utilized a hill and go to the hassle of building, walking and driving on sloped terrain.
On October 29, 2009 at 6:13 am, Langenator said:
One thing to note that the video doesn’t show: there was an OP (platoon-ish size) on high ground to the southwest, overwatching COP Keating. The OP had at least a 120mm mortar, and I think a 60mm.
On 3 Oct, the OP was attacked at the same time as COP Keating, and insurgent fire temporarily kept the soldiers at the OP from employing the mortars. Once the direct attack on the OP as driven off, they were able to fire their mortars in support of Keating.
And those mountains (they’re most definitely NOT hills) are far too steep and rocky to build any sort of road without a MAJOR engineering effort. The OP on the hill was, I believe, supplied entirely by air.
On October 29, 2009 at 8:32 am, Herschel Smith said:
I’m doubtful that there was a platoon-ish size Observation Post near Keating. Keating itself was platoon-ish size. Had to be fewer troops than that.
If we couldn’t have utilized an abutment to make Keating more defensible, then my position is that we shouldn’t have built COP Keating where we did.