Learning a Lesson after Nine Years of Trying

Here is a report from our "hope springs eternal file"...

The US military has apparantly learned a valuable lesson in Afghanistan after fighting Taleban and Al Qaeda forces for nine years (from an AP newswire story):

The U.S. military's workhorse rifle - used in battle for the last 40 years - is proving less effective in Afghanistan against the Taliban's more primitive but longer range weapons.

As a result, the U.S. is reevaluating the performance of its standard M-4 rifle and considering a switch to weapons that fire a larger round largely discarded in the 1960s.

The M-4 is an updated version of the M-16, which was designed for close quarters combat in Vietnam. It worked well in Iraq, where much of the fighting was in cities such as Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah.

But a U.S. Army study found that the 5.56 mm bullets fired from M-4s don't retain enough velocity at distances greater than 1,000 feet (300 meters) to kill an adversary. In hilly regions of Afghanistan, NATO and insurgent forces are often 2,000 to 2,500 feet (600-800 meters) apart.

Afghans have a tradition of long-range ambushes against foreign forces. During the 1832-1842 British-Afghan war, the British found that their Brown Bess muskets could not reach insurgent sharpshooters firing higher-caliber Jezzail flintlocks.

Soviet soldiers in the 1980s found that their AK-47 rifles could not match the World War II-era bolt-action Lee-Enfield and Mauser rifles used by mujahedeen rebels.

"These are important considerations in Afghanistan, where NATO forces are frequently attacked by insurgents using ... sharpshooter's rifles, which are all chambered for a full-powered cartridge which dates back to the 1890s," said Paul Cornish, curator of firearms at the Imperial War Museum in London.

I'm sure your heart is warmed as mine is to find that the US military is a "learning organization", always open to new experiences, and quickly adapting to the situation it finds itself in. For the cynics among you who think nine years is just too long a period to learn this life-and-death experience, take heart! The good news is that the matter has now been brought to the attention of military headquarters and we can expect that within a decade or two a requisition order will be sent out, and -- judging from the experience in fitting troops in the Iraq theatre -- it will only be 4 or 5 years after that when the new arms will be flowing to the troops.

For those who think that 20 or 30 years for the new arms to arrive will be far too late. Don't worry! I can assure you that the American mission in Afghanistan will still be there and the military planners at that point will be busy downsizing the commitment from 500,000 troops to a more modest 400,000 troops.

Remember: good things take time. Haste makes waste!