U.S. Tanks En Route to Southwestern Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2010 — Ser­vice­mem­bers in Afghanistan’s Region­al Command–Southwest will receive 14 M1A1 Abrams tanks to aid in the fight against the Tal­iban.
The Marine Corps tanks, which pack a super-accu­rate 120 mm main gun, will begin to arrive in Jan­u­ary. Defense Sec­re­tary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are aware that the tanks are being deployed, though the trans­fer did not require their approval.

“This is a capa­bil­i­ty the Marine force on the ground has in their inven­to­ry so they are swap­ping capa­bil­i­ties,” Pen­ta­gon spokesman Marine Col. Dave Lapan said. “This isn’t addi­tive to what they have.” 

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Richard P. Mills, com­man­der of Region­al Com­mand-South­west which is respon­si­ble for secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions in Hel­mand and Nim­roz provinces, request­ed the tanks.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, com­man­der of the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force, and Marine Gen. James N. Mat­tis, the com­man­der of U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand, approved the request.

“All com­man­ders eval­u­ate their sit­u­a­tions and their oper­a­tions,” Lapan said. “The com­man­der in RC-South­west deter­mined that tanks would be use­ful in the fight he has because of the increased mobil­i­ty, the increased fire­pow­er, because of the optics the tanks have.” 

Tanks are more accu­rate than artillery, mor­tars or aer­i­al bom­bard­ment, Lapan said. Coali­tion allies have had main bat­tle tanks in Afghanistan in the past.

The RC—Southwest region lends itself to armored oper­a­tions. The area is wide open and has none of the moun­tain­ous ter­rain that char­ac­ter­izes Region­al Command–East and the north­ern por­tions of Region­al Command–South. Com­man­ders in those areas are not request­ing tanks, Lapan said. 

The Afghan peo­ple have bad mem­o­ries of tanks in action. The Sovi­et Union deployed thou­sands of T‑55, T‑62 and T‑72 main bat­tle tanks into Afghanistan when it invad­ed the coun­try in 1979. Sovi­et crews used the tanks to mow down civil­ians and destroy whole vil­lages. Tanks became a hat­ed object of oppres­sion, and to this day, peo­ple can still see burnt out hulks of old Sovi­et tanks rust­ing in var­i­ous parts of Afghanistan. 

“Sovi­et tanks were some­thing the pop­u­lace will obvi­ous­ly remem­ber,” Lapan said. The local com­mand will work with local lead­ers and shuras to explain to the pub­lic what’s hap­pen­ing, and how the tanks will be used. 

Lapan empha­sized that the move­ment of the M1A1s to Afghanistan does not rep­re­sent an esca­la­tion of the con­flict there. 

“These things hap­pen all the time,” he said. “We’re con­duct­ing full-spec­trum com­bat oper­a­tions today, we’ll be doing it tomor­row, we’ll be doing it next month. Until the Afghan secu­ri­ty forces are ready to take over lead for secu­ri­ty … we will con­tin­ue to do com­bat oper­a­tions to defeat the enemy. 

“Whether we use tanks, or infantry on the ground,” Lapan con­tin­ued, “these are all tac­tics we use to defeat the enemy.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →