Today’s Independent carries a story about the changing fortunes of war in Afghanistan:

British forces in Afghanistan are restructuring their operations after months of fierce combat which have taken a mounting toll on the battlefield and caused rising concern at home.

The policy of setting up "advanced platoon houses", which have drawn relentless attacks in the heart of Helmand province's Taliban country, will be quietly abandoned. British troops will instead be concentrated in more easily defended bases near the towns of Lashkargar, Grishk, Sangin and Musa Qala, as well as their main base, Camp Bastion.

When US troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan to fulfill Mr Bu$h’s dream of proving he was more of a Great Warrior than his father, the British troops took over American positions that were, in some cases, isolated and not easily supportable. While the US Air Force has greatly improved its tactical support capabilities, the RAF has not.

British troops in Afghanistan are exhausted and desperately short of helicopters, and there is no sign that the casualty rate will fall, according to accounts yesterday from officers on the frontline.

The reports, including a leaked email describing the RAF as "utterly, utterly useless", put the government under fresh pressure over whether it adequately prepared British troops for operations in the hostile south of the country.

Actually, there have been several leaked e-mails from British officers in Afghanistan that have complained about the state of things. A series of emails from a Major James Loden were leaked to the British press by a concerned family member:

We are lacking manpower. Desperately in need of more helicopters. Attacks consist of regular rocket, mortar, RPG and small arms on the fire base, plus fairly heavy fire fights out on the ground. The RAF have been utterly, utterly useless. In contrast USAF have been fantastic. I have a couple of soldiers who I have concerns about after some heavy contact ...

By now [we] could see the Taliban were rushing weapons out of a mosque hidden in depth. We began to engage them with mortars. At about the same time the enemy engaged us with mortars ... The 2 platoons were trickling towards us now clearly exhausted ... Those of us on the fire support tower were shouting at them to keep running and spread out because of the enemy mortar fire

As for facts, I have been in the field since July 27th and have only had 3 days with no contact so fairly constant. [Referring to attack helicopters] The bottom line is that there are not enough of them.

[Referring to air support during a fight with the Taliban] Harrier couldn't identify and fired rockets that just missed Coy HQ compound. l Comd ... put in a snap ambush and slowed them up with a heavy rate of fire. ... no casualties, lots of ammo expended!

This is company-level combat, the staple of land warfare. (In the British Army companies are commanded by Majors.) This sort of positioning is not the way the US does business; it is not US doctrine to set companies in isolated positions.

Another story in the Guardian seems to identify this officer as a member of 3Para, which is considered an elite unit, well-trained and highly motivated.

However, in Iraq the story seems more confident:

British troops quit Iraq base, adopt WWII tactics

BAGHDAD, Aug 24 (Reuters) - British troops abandoned their base in Iraq's southern Maysan province on Thursday, which has been under almost nightly attack, and prepared to head deep into the marshlands along the Iranian border to hunt gun smugglers.

Soldiers of the Queen's Royal Hussars are to adopt tactics first pioneered by the famed Long Range Desert Group, a roving special forces unit that fought Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's German Afrika Korps in North Africa during World War Two.

Well, that sounds exciting. Stripped down Jeeps armed with machine guns rocketing around the sand dunes, machine-gunning German Iranian smuggler convoys and blowing up airplanes. Although you might not rocket around salt marshes.

"We are repositioning our forces to focus on border areas and deal with reports of smuggling of weapons and improvised explosive devices from across the border," British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge told Reuters.

"We are going to do what the Long Range Desert Group did in North Africa. We will live in the desert. We will be mobile and able to strike when we want. We will have surprise on our side," he said.

There have been some indications that there isn’t much US and Brits do in Iraq that surprises al-Quaeda/Shiite militias/insurgents/dead-enders/Iranian gun smugglers, but let’s give it a try because we haven’t done anything right so far in Iraq.

Now, the Queen’s Royal Hussars is traditionally an armored regiment, and it’s reported they Brits are shipping their Chieftain tanks and Warrior IFVs out of Iraq, supposedly by sea. The speculation has been that they want to get them out through the Straits of Hormuz before Bu$hCo bombs Iran and all hell breaks loose. This makes some sense because they’re expensive pieces of equipment. But wouldn’t they be very important when Iran flips the switch in retaliation after the bombing starts?

How do you fight off a counter-attack (best case), or conduct a fighting retreat (worst case) without some heavy fire support?