What if the 82nd Airborne Division was used in thoroughly cleansing Bin Laden's Tora Bora hideout caves?

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martinbayer

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Even after all these years, I am still dumbfounded by the fact that the USA political leadership at the time apparently decided for whatever reason to rely on local rag tag forces of shall we say at the very least dubious allegiance to pursue/capture Bin Ladin rather than forcefully bringing the hammer down by its own thoroughly loyal and professional military resources in this conflict. I truly believe that while the initial military losses in any such effort might have been notably higher, the hunt for that wretched master terrorist of the time would have ended right then and there and solved a lot of problems as well as avoided a lot of bloodshed much sooner than in real life.
 
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I got the impression hillsides were riddled like swiss-cheese, far too many caves fortified / trapped like those infamous 'Nam Chu-Chi tunnels...

And it was those 'Nam tunnel-war issues that led to US saying, in effect, 'No, we are not going there...'

IIRC, 'Nam spawned the 'Rome Plow'.

IIRC, 'Ash-Stan' spawned scary 'Bouncing Balls', that could fire-cracker their way around caves and tunnels, clearing traps and choking occupants.
Sorta 'Jumping Repeater Flash-Bangs'...

Don't know what happened to them, but they fell off the news...
 
martinbayer said:
the hunt for that wretched master terrorist of the time would have ended right then and there and solved a lot of problems as well as avoided a lot of bloodshed much sooner than in real life.
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Especially if the US had done what it should have: reduced the mountains to radioactive rubble. Showed the world that an attack on the Holy Nation of America will bring the wrath of the gods.

An initial barrage of, say, a dozen ground-penetrating bombs, one every fifteen minutes. Followed by one a day for the next month or two, aimed at taking off mountaintops. That'd get the message across.
 
From memory, the Tora Bora caves network size and complexity was as grossly exagerated as Saddam WMD threat a few months later...

[ I do know that "Les Guignols" (French Spitting Image) had tons of fun there. Even more when Mullah Omar ran away, first disguised as a woman and then, on a moped. They went full ZZ top & bikers & Easy rider with the Omar / Osama / Saddam trio. "Born to be wild..." ]
 
Orionblamblam said:
Especially if the US had done what it should have: reduced the mountains to radioactive rubble. Showed the world that an attack on the Holy Nation of America will bring the wrath of the gods.

An initial barrage of, say, a dozen ground-penetrating bombs, one every fifteen minutes. Followed by one a day for the next month or two, aimed at taking off mountaintops. That'd get the message across.
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I don't think there were enough nukes in the US Arsenal to do that. At least not enough earth penetrating warheads.

How many nukes do they say it'd take to breach NORAD?
 
Scott Kenny said:
I don't think there were enough nukes in the US Arsenal to do that. At least not enough earth penetrating warheads.
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That's what production lines are for.

In any event, it's an alternate history. An alternate US that was willing to actually do what it took in Tora Bora would have been a US that would not have stifled it's own nuclear industry. Indeed, one of the first American military responses to 9/11 for this US would have been for several of the Orion battleships orbiting Luna to boost towards home, while the others would have launched outwards and engaged stealth measures so that the possible US counterstrike from deep space would not have been readily predictable.
 
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