From: Adam 

Monte Davis wrote:
> "Geo"  wrote:
>
>> I don't see sand mentioned anywhere..
>
> I believe our over-all losses in Viet Nam to mines, booby traps, and
> more or less Improvised EDs were about 9%. The high figure for the 1st
> Marine Division in his time (3/68 to 10/69) and area was because
>
> - after Tet losses the surviving VC and NVA pulled in their horns for
> quite a while,
>
> - much of that area of operations *was* clear enough to discourage
> them from sizeable concentrations, and
>
> - nobody in his right mind would want to stand up and fight 1Mar (you
> saw that coming, right? :-)
>
> Seriously, what pisses me off about this "new kind of war" jive is
> thinking about how many of the IEDs are Saddam's munitions, looted in
> the days and weeks after his army melted away. We didn't secure them
> for far too long, because
>
> (1) static details like that would have required more troops for all
> the Iraqi army depots -- you know, "old thinking" like that dinosaur
> Shinseki, not Rummy's swift cool transformational shock 'n awe
>
> (2) we'd be so welcome that who could possibly have a motive to fill a
> pickup with 155mm rounds for tinkering on a rainy day..?
>
> I know, I know... it's not like there aren't other sources of
> explosives in the Middle East. But what made it so freakin *easy* was
> the arrogance of these clowns in charge.

It's not just that. The warning I saw involved the vast minefields esp
between Iraq & Iran which were....known...mapped...etc but where the
"saddam die hards" etc had the maps....

Hundred of thousands if not millions of both ap & at devices....

Adam

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