When I was a kid, I voraciously read war comics - fictional tales of derring-do, usually set in the Second World War, with fearless Allied soldiers fighting fanatical Nazis or Japanese and prevailing against great odds. The titles were evocative and stirring - "The Fighting Few", "Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!" and "The Haunted Jungle". The motifs were timeless and recurring - honour, courage, grit, self-sacrifice, redemption and so on. The plots were simple, the dialogue cheesy, and exclamation marks flew thick and fast...
"It's darned tough, sir! Once those Huns get across the river they'll be all over us like a swarm of hornets!"*
Now, almost straight from the Commando comic annals, comes this story from the Afghan War, with the blood-curdling headline "British two-ton 'Dragon gun' terrifies Taliban" (h/t Armchair Generalist). According to the Times, plucky British gunners, guarded by stalwart Gurkhas, haul a 105mm light gun up a mountain in Helmand province. When the gun opens fire it terrifies the Taliban, so much that they name it 'the Dragon', "because of the flame that belches out of its
barrel when fired".
Ye gods!
The obvious question is why the Brits didn't fly the gun of doom to the top of the rock outcrop? The article suggests that surprise was a key factor in the decision to do things the old fashioned way. But surprise would only last until the gun fired, then everyone would know its position.
The Times article is a straight cut and paste from this British Ministry of Defence release, and a good example of lazy churnalism. It's worth reading the MoD release, because it explains why the Brits sited the gun on top of the rock outcrop, e.g., being able to fire directly at the enemy in a straight line, rather than indirectly. The MoD release also undermines the element of surprise line that the Times article ran. According to the MoD, helicopters were used to ferry the gun to the foot of the cliffs, and the gunners spent the previous four days building a solid firing platform on top of the outcrop. So much for secrecy.
The epic story of the hauling of the gun of doom smells like a PR stunt. But am I being too cynical? Perhaps it's more likely that British officers on the ground wanted to give the poor gunners something to do, and some enterprising MoD PR hack saw this as a golden opportunity to spin a positive story about Brits in Afghanistan.
* 'Sergeant Dave Green', in "Fight Back to Dunkirk" (War Picture Library).
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