Afghanistan - 20 years on

I’m not saying trigger discipline is a western thing, I’m saying it’s something that has been trained into those guys over and over again, very few people that aren’t trained to handle firearms would pick up a rifle and naturally hold it like that.
The Taliban are a 200,000 strong army. I'd imagine they train their people tbh.

Given their history, quite possibly senior members were trained by the West, and pass that training down.
 
I’m not saying trigger discipline is a western thing, I’m saying it’s something that has been trained into those guys over and over again, very few people that aren’t trained to handle firearms would pick up a rifle and naturally hold it like that.

Why do you think the Taliban haven't been trained to handle firearms? These guys have had training camps for years, and the guys posing in that photo are hardly going to be recently picked off the streets.
 
The Taliban are a 200,000 strong army. I'd imagine they train their people tbh.

Given their history, quite possibly senior members were trained by the West, and pass that training down.
Why do you think the Taliban haven't been trained to handle firearms? These guys have had training camps for years, and the guys posing in that photo are hardly going to be recently picked off the streets.
That’s a fair point, but when it comes to little things like that, that comes from military doctrine that has been constantly trained into solders over years, the Taliban tend to put a rifle in someone’s hand give them a few days training(maybe a week) and then off they go. What you think is a silly little thing and makes no difference is something a soldier is constantly drilled in and one little slip tends to end in a beasting(good old press-up position down) for 20mins or so, so you don’t forget next time. That’s not something I see the Taliban focusing on when training their fighters.
 
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Trigger discipline is not exclusively a western thing…

It’s exactly this kind of Western/American Pig Dog mentality and propaganda that has resulted in their defeat time and time again. Utter disregard and disrespect for the enemy, completely underestimating them.

We’ve had utter stupidity in this very thread with posters lambasting the Taliban about not being able to fly the helicopters left behind, only for them to immediately lift them and be joy riding around.

I mean let's be clear here, America achieved their military objective, they've obviously failed to achieve a satisfactory withdrawal politically but America just spent 20 years occupying Afghanistan where they inflicted massive losses on the opposition, the Taliban no longer harbor Al'Qaeda terrorists, and they killed Osama Bin Laden. Both boxes ticked.
 

How long until we are sending these guys in to fight our battles. Can take out a group of Taliban fighters and even do a back flip to celebrate.

This sort of tech must be getting interest from the US Military, the cost of US lives is too high politically but they still need a force to put on the ground when needed.
 

How long until we are sending these guys in to fight our battles. Can take out a group of Taliban fighters and even do a back flip to celebrate.

This sort of tech must be getting interest from the US Military, the cost of US lives is too high politically but they still need a force to put on the ground when needed.
Won’t be long, the perfect soldiers, can be programmed with a soldiers knowledge that won’t be lost if it’s taken out, replaceable in days/weeks instead or months/years and as you say no cost in lives.
 
That’s a fair point, but when it comes to little things like that, that comes from military doctrine that has been constantly trained into solders over years, the Taliban tend to put a rifle in someone’s hand give them a few days training(maybe a week) and then off they go. What you think is a silly little thing and makes no difference is something a soldier is constantly drilled in and one little slip tends to end in a beasting(good old press-up position down) for 20mins or so, so you don’t forget next time. That’s not something I see the Taliban focusing on when training their fighters.

I'm certainly not dismissing the idea that it reflects disciplined military training, or at least disciplined gun training, but I'm dubious of the notion that this necessarily implies these soldiers were coalition trained. I certainly have no inside information on how the Taliban train their fighters, but I think it's worth remembering that most of these groups do contain a considerably number of proper trained individuals at their higher levels and that presumably filters down into how they train the next generation of soldiers. After all, if you've had trigger discipline drilled into you, wouldn't you drill it into anyone you trained? And while I have no idea about the Taliban themselves, it's worth remembering that Old bin Laden himself was trained by US Special Forces so there was certainly expertise being communicated to the Mujahideen fighters in the area who would also have influenced the Taliban's training programmes.
 

How long until we are sending these guys in to fight our battles. Can take out a group of Taliban fighters and even do a back flip to celebrate.

This sort of tech must be getting interest from the US Military, the cost of US lives is too high politically but they still need a force to put on the ground when needed.
I hate to be named Sarah Connor right now.
 
I’m not saying trigger discipline is a western thing, I’m saying it’s something that has been trained into those guys over and over again, very few people that aren’t trained to handle firearms would pick up a rifle and naturally hold it like that.

I was trained for maybe an hour max with firearms, probably less than that, and the very very basic and easy premise of trigger discipline resulted in me looking like that when ever I hold a firearm in photos.

It is frankly just pig headedness and racist propaganda to think that these guys are just cave dwellers who don’t have an efficient and well trained army, capable of taking a country and fighting a far more advanced for over 20 years without being wiped out. These guys are very brutal, efficient and hardy soldiers, and they have the ability to train and pass down very basic weapons handling skills.
 
I played airsoft a dozen or so times and have trigger discipline, come on guys.

I was trained for maybe an hour max with firearms, probably less than that, and the very very basic and easy premise of trigger discipline resulted in me looking like that when ever I hold a firearm in photos.

It is frankly just pig headedness and racist propaganda to think that these guys are just cave dwellers who don’t have an efficient and well trained army, capable of taking a country and fighting a far more advanced for over 20 years without being wiped out. These guys are very brutal, efficient and hardy soldiers, and they have the ability to train and pass down very basic weapons handling skills.

Suggesting the Taliban might have poor trigger discipline is not racist HAHAHAHAHA
 
I mean let's be clear here, America achieved their military objective, they've obviously failed to achieve a satisfactory withdrawal politically but America just spent 20 years occupying Afghanistan where they inflicted massive losses on the opposition, the Taliban no longer harbor Al'Qaeda terrorists, and they killed Osama Bin Laden. Both boxes ticked.

Lol, mission accomplished!

That’s some fantastic revisionist history.

The west have had their nose bloodied. Let’s face it, the real mission was that industrial war machines profits. Nothing else.
 
I played airsoft a dozen or so times and have trigger discipline, come on guys.

Exactly, I’ve never played airsoft but if you have it after doing so, why would the Taliban not? A trained army that just took a country and fought off the most powerful army in the world (and their lapdogs)
 
Lol, mission accomplished!

That’s some fantastic revisionist history.

The west have had their nose bloodied. Let’s face it, the real mission was that industrial war machines profits. Nothing else.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-49192495

This is literally fact, the invasion followed 9/11 because the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden and they were allowing Al'Qaeda terrorist training camps. The Insurgents/Taliban suffered some 50,000+ KIA, around 15x that of NATO/ISAF, and had their country occupied for 20 years. Yet you're marking it down as a US loss. They killed Bin laden. Do you think they'll allow terror training camps again?

Exactly, I’ve never played airsoft but if you have it after doing so, why would the Taliban not? A trained army that just took a country and fought off the most powerful army in the world (and their lapdogs)

They aren't a trained army, they conducted guerilla warfare for 20 years using IED's and committing largely hit and run attacks on patrols while hiding and suffering huge losses anytime they engaged in firefights with soldiers. You seem to think defending our ally after 3,000+ people including 67 Brits were killed by Al'Qaeda terrorists in 9/11 makes the UK a lapdog though so I'm not sure this is a productive use of my time
 
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Was always told to have your trigger finger resting on the safety catch when carrying L85 especially on patrol as you know the safety is on and you are less likely not to forget to disengage it if needing to fire.
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-49192495

This is literally fact, the invasion followed 9/11 because the Taliban refused to hand over Bin Laden and they were allowing Al'Qaeda terrorist training camps. The Insurgents/Taliban suffered some 50,000+ KIA, around 15x that of NATO/ISAF, and had their country occupied for 20 years. Yet you're marking it down as a US loss. They killed Bin laden. Do you think they'll allow terror training camps again?

If that was the mission, why stay?

And lol bragging about numbers killed vs numbers killed, as if that is a victory.

There was an offer to give up Osama, Bush rejected it, if that had been the objective, this could have been long over. The long term objective was to prevent the Taliban ever regaining control, they failed at that, miserably. The Taliban, despite suffering horrendous losses to a much better military, have won. They have pushed out the invaders and are back in control.

You now have suicide hotlines going up for troops, who sacrificed limbs and loved ones, all for nothing now. This is Vietnam part 2. Another bloody nose for the west. But some weapons manufacturers got very wealthy, and that was the real goal.

This was a failure, not by the troops and heroes on the ground, but of government and policy.
 
I meant elaborate on why the finger position is special, not why people who have served would notice it.

How do other nations hold their weapons?
Where do they rest their trigger finger?
Do you need to hold your finger dead straight? What if there is a little curl?
Do they care what angle your finger is at relative to the barrel?

etc...

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What about these guys. Picture from google says they are russian soldiers. Seems like a similar position. what are the differences that i am not noticing? Is the relaxed grip a problem in the coalition forces?
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I forwarded this picture to my two sons, who were both in the army in the eighties, one in Germany all his time, the other one did a hitch in Northern Ireland then finished up in Germany.
They both said that the rifles they carried were SLR, not the ones in the photo, and that they carried them like that “at the ready”, with their index finger in that same position.
I said that I thought that SLR was a single lens reflex camera, then the elder kid said, “Self Loading Rifle, you clown!”
The kid in the Signal Corps said that he was also issued with a 9mm Browning pistol, Christ knows why.
 
If that was the mission, why stay?

And lol bragging about numbers killed vs numbers killed, as if that is a victory.

There was an offer to give up Osama, Bush rejected it, if that had been the objective, this could have been long over. The long term objective was to prevent the Taliban ever regaining control, they failed at that, miserably. The Taliban, despite suffering horrendous losses to a much better military, have won. They have pushed out the invaders and are back in control.

You now have suicide hotlines going up for troops, who sacrificed limbs and loved ones, all for nothing now. This is Vietnam part 2. Another bloody nose for the west. But some weapons manufacturers got very wealthy, and that was the real goal.

No, Bush rejected an offer to hand Bin Laden over to an Islamic Court. The long term goal, again, was to capture or kill Bin Laden and to end terrorist training camps in Afganistan, it wasn't to conduct regime change, although clearly we did try to set up some sort of Democratic government but that was a waste of time. That doesn't constitute a defeat. Even Vietnam wasn't really a defeat for the Americans, the entire goal of being there was to stop the spread of Communism across South East Asia. They weren't allowed to achieve a military victory because of the fear of escalating a wider conflict with China and the USSR, but they achieved their geopolitical goal since look, even China isn't a Communist state anymore (probably much to your dismay).
 
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