While the MK19 is such a badass weapon and absolutely necessary in this country, unless you had a good crew on it they jammed like crazy.
I had 3 1114s for my SECFOR team which got replaced with two MRAPS… which broke within a week. We then sat on our asses for almost a month because we had nothing to work with. I feel your pain on vehicle issues. I got stranded in a mountain pass once because the other two vehicles in my group were riding the brakes and blew them out while I had my driver down shift. End result was my vehicle towing two others and staying at a Hungarian base. Co-ed bathrooms and showers were interesting.
1114s? Damn, when I went, even MRAPs were not allowed outside. We did learn that the 50cal had a difficult time penetrating mud huts. the MK19 would have been a whole nother game.
Over the course of these missions (and many others than are too sensitive to get into here) we built a reputation and significant trust between us and our partnered police unit and this resulted in other Afghan Police and Army officers appearing at my FOB looking for support, advice, and in some cases safeguard from insurgents. My platoon was always up for a fight and this was extremely refreshing to the Afghans who were only ever familiar with Italians and Slovenian forces who (due to the political climate back home) avoided conflict at ALL costs.
In one incident we were near by a fuel convoy when it was hit and drove our convoy to the area of the attack at full speed. Like the last chase we were in we were at a huge disadvantage off road against bikes but this time were able to disable the bikes while the insurgents inexplicably were able to escape the area.
I should add a couple of shit our pants moments; 1. Before leaving the highway the lead truck jumped an IED crater of about 10 feet in diameter. It wasn’t on the road for our last recon of the area and the truck crew were not able to see it while traveling full speed. 2. When we arrived at the scene and my truck took the lead we stuck to the shoulder of the road to maintain speed and pass the convoy. As we approached the 3 burning tankers were were sprayed and had our vehicle and gunner absolutely drenched in diesel.
The IED striking the police ranger was sort of a final straw and a turning point for us. The police were done playing games with insurgents and assholes and the following week I got a phone call from my from Police commander about his peer in a neighboring area. He claimed he had been supporting the Taliban and subverting the security efforts of the police and ANA in the area. Before we would coordinate with the “battle space owners” and create a plan of what to do I recieved another call early in the AM, the commander had poisoned his soldiers and fled the area with his sergeants who supported him, an 1114 (armored Humvee) and a number of weapons.
So we loaded up on guns and brought our police friends and started to hunt. We tracked them for about 16 hours with the police before it was clear that they had fled my area. As I returned to the FOB I was shocked to see this already posted on BBC Afghan policemen defect to Taliban in Farah province - BBC News
Even though we were not able to intercept them this was a success to some extent because they were uprooted and effectively banished from the AO and their position of power where they had considerable influence.
Another late phone call was an invitation to a police checkpoint at the southern edge of my AO where a particular SGT had picked up some intel. This checkpoint was unusual because it was in a built up area rather than on a hill top. When we arrived I was asked to join the police commander and his commander on the rooftop.
It turned out that the SGT was originally from the area and was aware that just over the horizon was the residence of a bomb maker who may have been responsible for the IED strikes. We carefully planned out our raid and were happy to hear that the police felt ready to lead the op. We would stand with them in support but would not initiate anything. The only thing that bothered me was the idea of the police leading a convoy of soft skin trucks and my MATVs to a bomb maker’s village. We argued the point a bit and despite still having 4 of his men in the hospital the commander insisted that he take the lead. I eventually relented but as soon as we got off the pavement I had my driver pull our truck around him and blasted a path right right through the desert.
the objective:
The rest of this should be pretty self explanatory
No explosives were found but the serial number on the AK revealed that it belonged to a policeman who had been abducted at a checkpoint the year prior.
