How did the Taliban manage to "sneak up" on the outpost

[thunder rising]

Any of the war "experts" that hang around here care to discuss how with all of our hyper ectoplasmic radioactive infrared seeking can't-miss-fucking-nothing detector devices the Taliban managed to sneak up on the two outposts? Not to mention that I'm sure there were sentry's. Right?

We have have been spending BILLIONS of dollars on every piece of shit that DoD contractors can imagine and yet we can still have an outpost attacked at close range in the ever unexpected pre-dawn/early morning attack. Who'da thunk the Taliban were capable of such cunning and sophisticated planning.

So WTF happened there?

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Where are all the chicken hawks that love to flaunt their military knowledge?
(added after it was apparent that the DoD bloggers wanted to ignore the OP)
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[msongs]

1. military needs attacks to justify its funding and power...failure IS an option sometimes nt

[malaise]

4. Ding ding

The timing was simply amazing.

[JohnnyLib2]

8. Horrifying possibility.

and I can't shake the thought, either.

[tekisui]

17. The Taliban breached the base.

That shouldn't be possible.

[madokie]

2. It's possible that they just stormed the place

It happened where I was in 'Nam a couple times. It all happens so quickly that many are caught off guard

[spanone]

3. funny how some people die just as funding & troop deployment is being discussed

just a koinkydink

[Ineeda]

10. Bingo.

In their twisted minds, a necessary sacrifice of human beings for political leverage. What else is new?
Disgusting. :cry:

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Maybe the guy who's always talking about the boiling frogs and petro this and that can chime in.

I'm sure he thinks he's some kind of GI Joe.

[babylonsister]

6. I heard this a.m.

that the outpost was surrounded by mountain peaks. I thought to myself, those soldiers were sitting ducks, ripe for the picking. Who thought putting a post there was a good idea?

I think Jim Miklashevski relayed that info on m$nbc this am.

[thunder rising]

7. Still wouldn't our super-advanced detector shit make GI's aware that warm objects were out there?

[babylonsister]

9. If it was an outpost, how much equipment do you think

they lugged out there? I have no idea, but I suspect getting there was a challenge in itself.

[thunder rising]

13. So all our super detector shit is for the generals quarters? What'a fkn joke!

[Winterblues]

18. LOL

That was one of the things I truly hated about FOBs in Vietnam. They were always located on the top of the mountains and we had to hump down the thing and back up when the Patrol was over. Sometimes we actully had to use ropes to get to the top of a mountain before we could make camp..One could be on top of a mountain though and be surrounded by other mountain peaks, and bombarded from those peaks.

[shadowknows69]

11. It's called home turf advantage.

They watch, they listen, they learn. They don't attack until they're ready for us.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

12. the watchers in Tampa were on a coffee break.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

14. Bit more to it than that

It was a small forward operating base. 100+ US with ~40 Afghan army types. Straight up assault, through the Afghan sector, in many way a lot like Vietnam. Hand to hand kind of thing. When things are that close, air support can not help all that much. Odds were probably 5 to 1 or more against the bubbas in the base.

There been reports that it took a while to get air support and medevac there. Not sure if that is true, or there were manpads being fired at the helos. or what. Air power is the key to supporting such outposts.

[MidwestRick]

15. Guess I'd need to see a layout of the outpost

and the surrounding area before I could give an educated opinion on the matter. Was the outpost in or near the outskirts of a village? What type of patrols were used? What type of plans did the military have for the outpost. I did hear one report that this outpost is one that is being looked at as one to have been closed in the future with the new strategy of moving the troops to more populated areas.

Lots of information has not been provided so for anyone to assume anything...well, would just be an assumption.

[gratuitous]

16. I'm guessing it's in some pretty rough terrain

Until you've actually been somewhere like Afghanistan (and I haven't been to Afghanistan, only seen video footage), it's difficult to imagine the remoteness and the roughness of the geography. Mountains, hills, blind canyons, jutting rock formations, clouds, fog, dust and just about anything else can limit visibility and sight lines. And it's not like there are interstate highways to these outposts; more like the most pot-holed, poorly graveled, dirt road you can ever remember driving on. And those are the good stretches of road that don't go for more than 100 yards. The rest of it is unimproved goat paths that don't yield to modern devices like wheels, let alone infrared sensors, radars, motion detectors and the like.

The question isn't so much how someone could sneak up on an outpost; it's more like why would someone put an outpost in such a vulnerable position? Other posters seem to have hit on a possible and plausible solution. Please, please, please, parents and young people: Think before letting a loved one go into the military or before joining up. You may be called upon to make the "ultimate sacrifice." But it won't be for freedom or the U.S. of A. or apple pie or even Mary Jane Rottencrotch. It will be for the appropriations bill in Congress and the greater financial security of some overrich fatcats who don't give a tin shit if you die as long as they're making an additional couple of million dollars next year.