Terrorists "experimenting"?

[fishbob]

This falls apart with your extrapolation of 7 losses in 2 months to a yearly total of 42 or 3.5/month. As Ziggurat pointed out, you can't define a trend by looking at a short stretch that has an upswing.

I am not trying to define a trend.
I am bringing attention to an effort to pretend that sharply increased helicopter losses don't mean anything. I think that Zig is treading on his interdiction and violating common sense.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I am not trying to define a trend.
I am bringing attention to an effort to pretend that sharply increased helicopter losses don't mean anything. I think that Zig is treading on his interdiction and violating common sense.

Two points

Tyranny of small numbers.

Change in operational factors.

Zig's comment on sloppy operational detail. Similar sloppy operational detail is a root cause of an SA-3, Serb, shooting down an F-117 Stealth. (Stinkbug)

Some other non linear factors:

Change in geopgraphic concentration of helicopter sorties.

Increases in SAM's on hand by insurgents. A likely scenario.

Increases in weapons being dual used by Iraqi forces and their cousins in the various militias.

Changes in make up of troops in various areas, which includes more Iraqi troops, and thus more security breaches due to Iraqis being notoriously poor security risks, and more likely to give a tip to a militia if their loyalty is tested.

I don't think that has changed since I left.

DR

 

[WildCat]

Using RPG's to shoot down helicopters is not new, nor unique to Iraq. Some of you may be old enough to remember a little incident in Somalia a dozen years ago.

 

[fishbob]

latest report

Make that 8.

U.S. helicopter was shot down and crashed north of Baghdad on Wednesday, the military said after initially stating that the chopper made a “hard landing.” All aboard were safely evacuated by a second helicopter.

The only good part is in bold.

From the same report:

On Tuesday, a tanker filled with chlorine exploded and noxious
plumes covered homes and schools north of Baghdad. Nine people were killed, and 150 people were wounded, said one of the officials.

Stop underestimating the seriousness and underreporting the capabilities of these people.

Darth - how copters have be lost before the tyranny of small numbers no longer applies?

 

[Ziggurat]

From the same report:

On Tuesday, a tanker filled with chlorine exploded and noxious
plumes covered homes and schools north of Baghdad. Nine people were killed, and 150 people were wounded, said one of the officials.

Stop underestimating the seriousness and underreporting the capabilities of these people.

First of all, I'm not reporting on their capabilities, so I don't see how I can underreport on them. I'm commenting on their capabilities. Second, I'm not underestimating the seriousness of the situation at all. Rather, I recognize that higher casualty figures have been achieved before, and probably will be again, by conventional explosives. They don't need chlorine gas to be a serious problem, but chlorine gas isn't really changing the equation either. There's nothing really worse about these chlorine gas attacks than previous conventional explosives attacks they've made. That claim doesn't mean or even imply that their conventional explosive attacks aren't serious.

 

[Ziggurat]

Darth - how copters have be lost before the tyranny of small numbers no longer applies?

Oh, and fishbob? Slow down when you type. Your sentence as typed is ungrammatical. I suspect what you meant to write is "how many copters have to be lost before the tyranny of small numbers no longer applies?"

 

[fishbob]

Oh, and fishbob? Slow down when you type. Your sentence as typed is ungrammatical. I suspect what you meant to write is "how many copters have to be lost before the tyranny of small numbers no longer applies?"

Yep. You are correct. The tyranny of not enough fingers, not enough time.

PS: Crap.

It was at least the third truck bomb in a month to employ chlorine,

update