Soliders sent home for protesting civilian deaths

[IrishHand]

They're both in line for punishment - one for failing to obey orders, the next for failing to maintain proper discipline.

[The_Baron]

What I see from the article is that he ordered warning shots fired, then he ordered a machinegunner to try to stop the vehicle by hitting the radiator and then had the Bradley open up to stop it.
The M-240 machinegun fires the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. At the muzzle, it generates approximately 150db total sound pressure. Living near Fort Lewis, I can say from personal experience that if there's any road noise to speak of, you can't hear the guns firing even when driving by the firing line less than 50 meters away. The idea that the engagement would have been directed at a range less than 50 meters suggests that this Captain has essentially no clue what he's doing. That machinegun should have begun firing at between 300 and 500 meters at the absolute least.
The fact that he tried to stop the vehicle by having a burst of small bullets fired into its radiator indicates that he not only has no concept of the terminal ballistics of the weapons under his command but he also doesn't know much about engines.
It's very doubtful that someone who's not fully aquainted with military actions and the weapons in particular would even be able to identify a warning shot. Inside the vehicle with road and engine noise, the driver isn't going to be able to hear the passing bullets, they're not that loud. Unless she happened to be looking directly at the impact point, rounds fired into the ground aren't going to even attract attention. We're looking at a series of invisible bullets being expected to get the attention of a person who's at the far edge of stressed out. After getting their attention, we're expecting her to comprehend what the significance of those sounds might be, since she can't possibly see the bullets and the weapon itself is well suppressed in terms of muzzle blast.
What exactly was she supposed to get out of these warning shots? They're not going to be seen, heard or understood. What's their purpose again?
Then we're going to try to have the gunner poke a series of holes in the radiator. This is against a moving target that won't be disabled immediately by a perforation of the radiator and fired by a weapon that's specifically designed to not hit directly at the point of aim with each shot. It's a machinegun, not a rifle. It's an area effect weapon, that's what machineguns are for.
Had this officer been even slightly more intelligent than your average canteen cup, he should have had any warning shots fired by the Bradley to begin with. While it's again unlikely that the driver would see or comprehend the significance, at least the Captain would have the excuse that the rounds are explosive and she might have been able to see the smoke from their bursts.
Exactly why the road wasn't blocked will likely remain a mystery as this is one of the most basic tenets of refugee control. You don't let anybody get free run of your position especially when it's along a longitudinal terrain feature like a road. You block it and force the approaching vehicles to navigate around barriers. This slows them, gets their attention focused on the block itself and subsequently on the forces manning it. You don't piss away time with warning shots, that's what the really big, really bright sign on the approach to your position is for.
If you do decide you have to shoot the vehicle, you don't use an antipersonnel weapon against a vehicle. You use your Bradley's Bushmaster cannon which is a point effect weapon, has the physical energy to disable the engine, is several times more accurate than the machinegun and is fired from inside an armored vehicle which will protect the crew from any threat that might reasonably be found in the approaching vehicle.
The Bradley and crew will survive even if the vehicle is equipped with an explosive device and with engagement entered into at a reasonable range of 1000 to 1250 meters, that device would literally have to be larger than the available volume of the oncoming car to present a threat to the crew.
In short, the officer was stupid. He violated tactical rules that are understood by every Corporal and buck Sergeant under his command. He might as well have just ordered the gunner to moon the oncoming vehicle and hope for the best, at least then he had a chance of the comic value of the situation making the driver stop. As it was, he put both is Marines and the people in the vehicle in a virtually untennable situation.
Unless I can see some documentation that shows the actual deployment and timelines of the engagement and those turn out to be significantly different than what's presented in the article listed, I'll stand by my analysis. The Captain [censored] up and should be run out on a rail

[brad]

'Exactly why the road wasn't blocked will likely remain a mystery as this is one of the most basic tenets of refugee control. You don't let anybody get free run of your position especially when it's along a longitudinal terrain feature like a road. '

thats what i thought.

it looks like they got unqualified people out there and/or the road/intersection had just been begun to be secured literally moments before (probably with an ad hoc force/command).

in any case it just doesnt look good, especially if its any predictor of what will happen when this kind of stuff heats up to a large scale.