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| Afghanistan |
| Video: Danish Light Cav. in Musa Qaleh Helmand - (siege) |
| 2008-03-29 |
| On July 21, a month after the siege began, a relief column of Danish armoured reconnaissance troops reinforced by British signals specialists left the main British base at Camp Bastion to try to relieve the Pathfinders. The column reached the outskirts of Musa Qala, only to be attacked from three sides at once. “We were engaged with heavy machinegun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, and to top it off the Taliban had blocked the road with barrels,” said Lance-Corporal Darren “Flames” Sloan, one of the British troops attached to the Danes. A Danish Eagle armoured vehicle was destroyed by a mine and three crewmen were wounded. The Danes responded with their own heavy machineguns before calling in an American B-1B bomber to deliver the final blow before moving back into the desert to regroup. Inside the Musa Qala compound food and water had run out, and the Pathfinders were drinking goats’ milk. They were feeling isolated and “slightly concerned” as the Danes withdrew. Five days after leaving Bastion, however, the Danes finally managed to push into the compound to be met by a group of dirty, skinny and unshaven British soldiers, all smiling like seven-year-old schoolboys on Christmas Day. “Most of us had lost a stone or more and we looked like the wild bunch,” said one Pathfinder. “We were unshaven, long haired, full of fleas and bugs and to be honest we didn’t smell too nice.” |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #3 CAS from a B-1B? You know that's going to leave a lasting impression. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-03-29 23:35 |
| #2 Hmmm...more like trying to avoid filing the EPA paperwork for a dangerous chemical release. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-03-29 22:10 |
| #1 If this was 1965, commanders had a weapon against machine gun and mortar pocket tactics: napalm. Our city tactics in Iraq are lame, yet we export same to the barren countryside. Use of napalm kills more than the enemy; it kills their morale. What the hell are we afraid of? Euros? UN doormats? Bearded things with the koran in one hand and an AK in the other? |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-03-29 21:55 |