On July 30, 2008, a bloody battle involving Coalition forces took place in the mountainous eastern Afghan province of Nuristan. This was the Battle of Wanat and the devastating amount of Coalition casualties began a vigorous investigation by the United States Army. The village of Wanat, defended by Second Platoon, Chosen Company, Second Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team would fall victim to numerous bad decision made by higher command. Although the men of Chosen Company fought hard, they ended up surrounded, vastly outnumbered, and without any Battalion assets. This paper will argue the reasons for the disastrous outcome of the Battle of Wanat; examining the effective company leadership exploiting effective …show more content…
The fault of the tragic engagement was on the battalion command. However, it was merely circumstantial that Wanat was ambushed and there was no humanly possible way to know the size of the enemy force. General Charles Campbell ended all investigations with his statement: “To criminalize command decisions in a theater of complex combat operations is a grave step indeed. It is also unnecessary, particularly in this case. It is possible for officers to err in judgment—and to thereby incur censure—without violating a criminal statute.” Thus, though the battalion command made fatal decisions, as well as Chosen Company; they had no way of knowing the size and scope of the attack. The officers made their decisions based on what they believed was the best course of action. Unfortunately, some decisions would prove detrimental in the Battle of Wanat as many brave men lost their
The 39th Battalion was made up of mostly 18 and 19 year old boys. They were hardly trained, unequipped and outnumbered in men. The Australians realised that they couldn’t win this battle, so they returned back to the Kokoda Village while still being cautious of Japanese troops and defending their selves. Late August was when the Australians had back up forces, but even though they had reinforcement, the Australians and Papuan’s were forced to retreat back to Imita Ridge which is just 50 km’s away from Port
Starting in mid-January to mid-February, there was interest in assaulting the Shahikot Valley in the Paktia province of Afghanistan by employing U.S. ground combat forces as part as an operation due to intelligence reports suggesting that enemy forces, which included al Qaeda and the Taliban where in the stages of reoccupying the area to regroup its forces after its sustaining defeats during the early stages of Operation Enduring Freedom. A debate between intelligence agencies on whether the enemy troops would be on the valley floor or on the hills. Well before the battle, early intelligence estimates, which drew on HUMINT and other sources, claimed that nearly 1,000 al Qaeda and Taliban forces might be present in the Shahikot Valley but then were lowered to about 200 to 300 personnel (Baranick, Binnendijk , Kuglar, 2009). They also concluded that they were mostly living in the valley’s villages, rather than deployed in the surrounding mountains and ridgelines as they thought they would be from the more tactical
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The result of St. Clair’s misuse of intelligence reporting resulted in 24 of 920 soldiers
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