Wednesday, August 24, 2016

The death of an 8x8 IFV. Is situational awareness the most important factor in armored warfare now?

Below you'll see screen captures of the vid that Drinas gave the blog links to (you can see it in an earlier post).  Putting aside the fact that the Saudi's are piss poor soldiers...putting aside that they're getting taken apart with basic and I mean BASIC soldier skills...ignoring that those three vehicles possessed more firepower than the people firing at them from the hilltops....

The question needs to be asked.  Is situational awareness (optics, sensors, etc...) the most important factor in armored warfare now?  Armor nuts (myself included) debate firepower, mobility, armor protection...wheels vs tracks...but we never debate vehicle sensors.

Check out the pics below and the video I posted earlier.  We weren't there so we don't know but my bet is that those poor bastards didn't even know where they were taking fire from.  If they had state of the art sensor systems then maybe they could have returned fire and gotten out of that killbox.

Lead vehicle hits a rut in the road and loses its axle.  Trail vehicle following too closely for the speed being traveled rear ends it.  Apparently the crash causes the two back tires on the right side of the vehicle to deflate.  This should not have been a mobility kill.  I'm sure the driver of the LAV probably sustained serious injuries in the crash.

The third vehicle in this tragic comedy zooms around the first two.  This was the chance to assist his comrades but he was having none of that and simply unassed the area at high speed. I guess the thought was better "you than me".

The survivors of the crash realizes they're in deep doo-doo.  I can't even imagine the conversations going on inside the vehicles at this time.  The radio communication back to whatever HQ is probably laced with profanity.  I'm sure prayers were said.

Didn't notice it the first time I saw the vid but the turret attempts to orient toward the enemy.  I never saw it fire and the fact that the rear hatch is open means that at least one person in the vehicle has made a decision to leave on foot.  The fate of one guy trying to hoof it out is shown on vid.  He sprints for what looks like a half mile to me (world record fashion) and is finally clipped in the ankle and sent to Allah.

The death of the 8x8 IFV.  I never saw rocket fire and it appears that they killed it with small arms.  I have to repeat.  Not counting personal weapons, but with the 90mm on the LAV, plus the 50 cal on the Hummer, the ambushed force had FAR MORE FIREPOWER than the enemy.  They quite simply had no idea where to fire.

No comments :

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.