This is
one of the great stories of military history.
For nearly two months, the 88 men of Easy Company – a mix of Paratroopers and the Royal Irish – had faced the overwhelming force and firepower of up to 500 Taliban determined to over-run the remote Helmand outpost of Musa Qala....
Hungry and frequently at the point of exhaustion, they were forced to somehow fend off 360-degree attacks from the Taliban, with little protection beyond a series of low mud walls.
They used up a quarter of all the British Army’s Afghan ammunition for that entire year.
There's going to be a documentary that ought to be worth the candle.
It's a story all right. But not the one we are supposed to see. The crux is in these two words "two months". Two Months? What the hell was their commanding authority doing?
ReplyDeleteApparently sending them more ammo.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good question, though. The British military isn't what it used to be, but you'd think they could have asked some Americans to bail them out.
The comparison with Rorkes drift is a bit misleading - that battle took place over Two Days and resulted in at least 12 KIA on the British side. And the Zulu's were largely armed with melee weapons. So they had to get to arms reach to do any damage.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting tidbit of info I picked up in some old book, the Martini rifles grew so hot from rapid fire the troopers had to cut off their uniform sleeves to insulate their hands. That is a lot of ammo to shove through a single shot breechloader. A few weeks later they were freezing because of it...
Yeah, the Taliban actually outgunned as well as outnumbered the Brits in this case. It's a comparison that falls short of what these men accomplished, even though it's a comparison to one of the most legendary fights of all time.
ReplyDeleteHere is a place to get a very cool relic of the British Colonial Empire. IMA bought an enormous dusty forgotten armory from the Nepalese government a few years ago.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ima-usa.com/original-british-p-1871-martini-henry-mkii-short-lever-rifle-1870s-dates-cleaned-complete.html