← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Hamilton
Thread ID: 20329 | Posts: 21 | Started: 2005-09-22
2005-09-22 01:52 | User Profile
[left]Bayonet Brits kill 35 rebels From an article in [url="http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004223179,00.html"]The Sun[/url]
British soldiers killed 35 Iraqi attackers in the Armyââ¬â¢s first bayonet charge since the Falklands War 22 years ago. The fearless ****Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders**** stormed rebel positions after being ambushed and pinned down. Despite being outnumbered five to one, they suffered only three minor wounds in the hand-to-hand fighting near the city of Amara. The battle erupted after Land Rovers carrying 20 Argylls came under attack on a highway.
[/left] [left]After radioing for back-up, they fixed bayonets and charged at 100 rebels using tactics learned in drills.
When the fighting ended bodies lay all over the highway ââ¬â and more were floating in a nearby river. Nine rebels were captured. An Army spokesman said: ââ¬ÅThis was an intense engagement.ââ¬Â
The last bayonet charge was by the Scots Guards and the Paras against Argentinian positions.
[/left] [left]Argylls fight hand to hand in Iraq by BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR (from an article at [url="http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=559592004"]Scotland on Sunday[/url].
SCOTTISH troops fixed bayonets and fought hand to hand with a Shiââ¬â¢ite militia in southern Iraq in one of their fiercest clashes since the war was declared more than a year ago, it was reported last night.
Soldiers from the **Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders** mounted what were described as "classic infantry assaults" on firing and mortar positions held by more than 100 fighters loyal to the outlawed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to military sources.
At least 20 men from al-Sadrââ¬â¢s army were believed killed in more than three hours of fighting - the highest toll reported in any single incident involving British forces in the past 12 months.
Nine fighters were captured and three British soldiers injured, none seriously.
"It was very bloody and it was difficult to count all their dead," one source was quoted as saying. "There were bodies floating in the river."
The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were drawn into the fighting when soldiers in two Land-Rovers were ambushed on Friday afternoon about 15 miles east of the city of Amara. The soldiers escaped, only to be ambushed a second time by a larger group of militia, armed with machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.
Reinforcements were summoned from the Princess of Walesââ¬â¢s Royal Regiment at a base nearby. "There was some pretty fierce hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets fixed," the source added. "There were some classic assaults on mortar positions held by the al-Sadr forces."
Official spokesman Major Ian Clooney confirmed the Mehdi army "took a pretty heavy knocking", but refused to specify tactics. "This was certainly an intense engagement," he added.
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| [img]http://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/argylla.jpg[/img][center][img]http://www.calgaryhighlanders.com/16airassault.gif[/img] [/center] | [center]
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2005-09-22 14:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Reinforcements were summoned from the Princess of Walesââ¬â¢s Royal Regiment at a base nearby. "[u]There was some pretty fierce hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets fixed," the source added.[/u] "There were some classic assaults on mortar positions held by the al-Sadr forces."[/QUOTE] Sounds to me like a reporter is adding a bit to the story in the interest of drumming up interest. I'd love to read the unit's after action report. Sounds like they executed small unit tactics, one of the UK Army's strong suits, to good effect.
Hand to hand fighting is not the same thing as a "bayonet charge." A "classic assault" on a mortar position seems a rather vague term, and ever since Rommel wrote the book on Infantry Attacks, such an assault usually entails overwatch by fire, grenades, supressive fire, and a combination of fire and maneuver that brings you into close combat with the enemy. If they used the bayonet in the final overrun of the position
HUZZAH! :gunsmilie
Let's raise a glass for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders! Sounds like they did extremely well.
AE
2005-09-22 16:59 | User Profile
Albert "Smiler" Marshall died at the age of 108. He was the last cavalryman of World War I and rode in the last cavalry charge. The British far surpass Americans in remembering things like this. The national media pays far more attention to the deaths of movie actors.
[url]http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:kN9tWUIUxnsJ:europeanhistory.about.com/b/a/173291.htm+Smiler+marshall+death&hl=en[/url][QUOTE][B][CENTER][SIZE=3]A last huzzah for the final cavalryman[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B] By Amy Iggulden (Filed: 25/05/2005) Magnificent horses similar to those that defined the long life of Albert "Smiler" Marshall, the last cavalryman of the First World War, drew him to his funeral yesterday. Decorated in the Victorian plumes of Mr Marshall's childhood and accompanied by 16 men in First World War uniform, the two Dutch Warmbloods led more than 90 mourners to St Giles's Parish Church in Ashtead, Surrey. Traffic halted on the high street as the carriage drew past, followed by two standard bearers from the Vickers Machine-Gunners Society, 14 men marching, and two terriers to signify Mr Marshall's hunting days. All were war "re-enactors" dedicated to the memory of veterans. The walking mourners fell in behind before joining more than 200 already gathered in the church to remember one of the final dozen Great War survivors.
Mr Marshall, who died last week aged 108, is believed to have been the last veteran of the Somme and the last British cavalryman to have served at the Western Front. He could ride before he was five and continued to do so into his early nineties.
Among the mourners was William Stone - at 104 the youngest veteran of the First World War. The congregation heard a tribute from Mr Marshall's son John, aged 73, and a representative of the Essex Yeomanry, the regiment Mr Marshall joined after lying about his age, sounded Last Post.[/QUOTE]
2005-09-23 01:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]
HUZZAH! :gunsmilie
Let's raise a glass for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders! Sounds like they did extremely well.
AE[/QUOTE]
I prefer a tomahawk and a bowie to a bayonet, even better to take ones time with a mildot reticle... :cool:
However, I WILL raise my glass to these fellows!
[img]http://www.themacallan.com/img/range/12yo_tube_300.jpg[/img]
2005-09-23 01:24 | User Profile
God bless the Scots. Wearing tartans and fighting like Spartans. They've goat the Celtic fie in thar bloot, thar's nay misteek aboot it. [QUOTE=JoseyWales]I prefer a tomahawk and a bowie to a bayonet, even better to take ones time with a mildot reticle... :cool:
However, I WILL raise my glass to these fellows!
[img]http://www.themacallan.com/img/range/12yo_tube_300.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] That picture reminds me of another famous British regiment: The Black and Tan :wink:
Cheers!
:cheers:
2005-09-23 02:02 | User Profile
If this all happened as described, then that's damned impressive. Hell, it's amazing! But I wonder why they decided to do it, as it seems awfully risky. I've always thought of bayonet charges as a last-ditch effort -- a desperate act reserved for when you've run out of ammo. Maybe that's what happened here, although the article didn't say so.
A bayonet charge against people armed even with nothing more than crappy Saturday Night Specials isn't something I'd ever want to have to participate in.
2005-09-23 06:24 | User Profile
Bayonot charge.? I guess some people will believe anything! :starwars:
2005-09-23 10:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Julian the Apostate]Bayonot charge.? I guess some people will believe anything! :starwars:[/QUOTE]
Never mess with a Scot with a sword! Haven't you ever seen Braveheart?
2005-09-23 16:14 | User Profile
If one looks into military history, one finds that in the Musket Era, a well disciplined bayonet charge was a very effective tool, particularly against poorly disciplined troops. See Washington's problems in New York, 1775, against disciplined regulars (British and Hessian) who knew how to use the bayonet, while most of his regulars and irregulars not only did not have bayonets, but little discipline as well. [QUOTE=JoseyWales]I prefer a tomahawk and a bowie to a bayonet, even better to take ones time with a mildot reticle... [/QUOTE] See also Bunker/Breed's hill, which was overrun when powder ran low. They had no answer to the bayonet, though they surely made the Brits pay a heavy toll while powder and shot were available, and field fortifications.
One need not line up in rows to fight, so use of cover and maneuver makes your bowie and the tomahawk a fine tool. :starwars:
AE
2005-09-23 16:27 | User Profile
I'm sure the defenders were out of ammo, or weren't using it effectively. The Argylls aren't stupid; they wouldn't have charged straight into a fiery wall of hot lead.
2005-09-23 21:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hamilton]I'm sure the defenders were out of ammo, or weren't using it effectively. The Argylls aren't stupid; they wouldn't have charged straight into a fiery wall of hot lead.[/QUOTE] I am inclined to believe that the Argylls used supressive fire to keep the other guys' heads down, and assaulted from a spot "right up close and personal" in a violent overrun of the position. A bayonet appearing in your face all of a sudden, up close, is bound to be a significant emotional event, and possibly a fatal one.
AE
2005-09-24 17:31 | User Profile
A surprise bayonet assault is more than a little daring and has enormous psychological value. Considering it's reputation it does not surprise me that the British army have some very useful looking, highly determined troops running around causing havoc in Iraq. After all these are elite British infantry regiments.
Greg
"'He is a prodigy,' he said at last. 'He is an emissary of pity, and science, and progress, and devil knows what else. We want,' he began to declaim suddenly, 'for the guidance of the cause entrusted to us by Europe, so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies, a singleness of purpose.'" - Heart of Darkness : Joseph Conrad
2005-09-24 19:35 | User Profile
and the bayonet charge of Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine against the 15th Alabama. Not quite...
There is an interesting book by Grady McWhinney called Attack and Die on furor Gallici, the Celtic heritage in the Southern states, and the reliance on the charge by the Celts from prehistory.
[url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0817302298/qid=1127589819/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-4892022-7586513?v=glance&s=books[/url]
Seems us Celts don't know nothin' but the charge..... Scotland Forever! Erin go Bragh! Up the Cymri! [url]http://www.clandouglassociety.org/[/url]
2005-09-24 19:56 | User Profile
Bayonet attacks may have been practical before assault rifles and submachine guns were widely distributed. Now you can mow down more with automatic fire than with a weapon that you have to approach your enemy very close with.
2005-09-24 21:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]Bayonet attacks may have been practical before assault rifles and submachine guns were widely distributed. Now you can mow down more with automatic fire than with a weapon that you have to approach your enemy very close with.[/QUOTE]The problem is that you only get 2-3 seconds of continuous full-auto fire before you have to change magazines, and a lot of the 30 bullets in that mag are going to be wasted anyway. Belt-fed weapons are a different story, of course, but once ammo starts running out, the situation changes.
In fact, I've heard that Iraqis (and Afghanis) are notorious for "spray-n-pray" tactics, and that might have contributed to their demise in this case -- either through their failure to hit those charging at them, or maybe just through burning up all their ammo early in the fight.
I guess it also depends a lot on the range at which you're fighting. Your enemy would have to be pretty foolish or desperate to try a bayonet charge over 100 yards of open terrain. But at really short ranges -- say, 25 yards or so -- I'd imagine even belt-fed machine guns wouldn't be able to cut down all the people suddenly jumping out from behind cover and charging with bayonets.
I'm no military expert, of course; these are just my opinions.
2005-09-24 21:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hamilton]I'm sure the defenders were out of ammo, or weren't using it effectively. The Argylls aren't stupid; they wouldn't have charged straight into a fiery wall of hot lead.[/QUOTE]There's also the possibility that they realized what a crappy weapon the SA80 really is and decided to depend on something more reliable. :lol:
Seriously, I can't believe British soldiers don't refuse to go to combat with that ridiculous weapon. After all the complaints I've read about it, I wouldn't even trust it for use as a doorstop.
2005-09-24 22:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]The problem is that you only get 2-3 seconds of continuous full-auto fire before you have to change magazines, and a lot of the 30 bullets in that mag are going to be wasted anyway. Belt-fed weapons are a different story, of course, but once ammo starts running out, the situation changes. Exactly. No clip holds infinite ammo, and no one can carry infinite clips. This holds true even in Rambo movies. It's a thousand times more true in reality.
In fact, I've heard that Iraqis (and Afghanis) are notorious for "spray-n-pray" tactics, and that might have contributed to their demise in this case -- either through their failure to hit those charging at them, or maybe just through burning up all their ammo early in the fight. If you kneel and pray with bullets whizzing all around you, Allah is probably going to interpret that as meaning that you're ready for paradise RIGHT NOW. But at really short ranges -- say, 25 yards or so -- I'd imagine even belt-fed machine guns wouldn't be able to cut down all the people suddenly jumping out from behind cover and charging with bayonets. This is true. Also, as I believe Angeleyes mentioned, the Iraqis may have been cowering down low under suppressive fire. Once surrounded and suppressed, the big scary bayonet charge finished them off. I think Gen. Patton summed up this tactic as, "grab 'em by the nose, and kick 'em in the ass." (i.e., the four F's: find 'em, fix 'em, flank 'em, and finish 'em)
2005-09-24 22:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]There's also the possibility that they realized what a crappy weapon the SA80 really is and decided to depend on something more reliable. :lol: [img]http://www.ak-47.net/images/AK47/AK-47.gif[/img]
Here's that something.
Seriously, I can't believe British soldiers don't refuse to go to combat with that ridiculous weapon. After all the complaints I've read about it, I wouldn't even trust it for use as a doorstop.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I wonder what the hell the designer was thinking? Now I know why militaries tend to be so hung up about psychoactive drugs.
2005-09-24 23:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE=YertleTurtle]Never mess with a Scot with a sword! Haven't you ever seen Braveheart?[/QUOTE] It's not the sword you'd be worried about .. :shocking:
2005-09-24 23:31 | User Profile
If I was on a battlefield and had to choose one weapon, I'd take this over a sword any day: [img]http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ground/images/m-82_020614_06.jpg[/img]
Of course, if at all possible, both would be great. It's always good to have cold, sharp steel to fall back on (or rather, for your enemy to...). It's pretty common for troops in some "Third World" countries to carry both a machinegun and a machete.
2005-09-26 18:12 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hamilton] I think Gen. Patton summed up this tactic as, "grab 'em by the nose, and kick 'em in the ass." (i.e., the four F's: find 'em, fix 'em, flank 'em, and finish 'em)[/QUOTE] grins
If you have a little close air support handy, you can get down to 3 F's if your communication and talk on skills are good.
Find 'em, fix 'em, finish 'em. I like your 4 F's: nice and concise.
AE