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Jointness in Fallujah

The Belmont Club and The Adventures of Chester have excellent coverage of the Fallujah campaign.

What I find interesting is how well the Marines have adapted to urban combat. Of course, there was a huge body of literature on the subject, but this is the first real campaign that shows urban theaters present no great shelter from a modern armed force.

Also interesting is the extent to which infantry is using technology:

For the first time in a major battle, guided artillery is being used quantity. In addition to the now familiar JDAMs, or GPS guided bombs, there are now GPS guided shells. Space based positioning satellites, laser range finding, robotics and networked computing are now as much a part of infantry combat as the boot heel.

Compare this with even the second Gulf War, when poor coordination between various branches of the armed forces (and especially the US and English troops) led to quite a few blue-on-blue casualties. Given that the Fallujah operation occupies a smaller geographical area and thus gives far less wiggle room to the men on the ground, I believe the US armed forces have figured out how to do jointness right.

10 November 2004 6:15 pm

One Response to “Jointness in Fallujah”

  1. Karthik Says:

    Go US Marines! I have a bunch of friends from Los Alamos who’re marines, who’re likely to be on this campaign. So, I hope these guys (and girls ;)) do well.

 

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