The USMC in Helmand (merged thread)
Early this morning, 24th MEU rolled into Helmand Province in force, using helos and Humvees to seize the Taliban-controlled town of Garmser.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/...n4053148.shtml
Quote:
U.S. Marines in helicopters and Humvees flooded into a Taliban-held town in southern Afghanistan's most violent province early Tuesday in the first major American operation in the region in years.
Several hundred Marines, many of them veterans of the conflict in Iraq, pushed into the town of Garmser in predawn light in an operation to drive out militants, stretching NATO's presence into an area littered with poppy fields and classified as Taliban territory.
U.S. commanders say Taliban fighters have been expecting an assault and have been setting up improvised explosive devices in response. It wasn't known how much resistance the Marines would face in Garmser, where the British have a small base on the town's edge but whose main marketplace is closed because of the Taliban threat.
The assault in Helmand province - backed by U.S. artillery in the desert and fighter aircraft in the sky - is the first major task undertaken by the 2,300 Marines in the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which arrived last month from Camp Lejuene, North Carolina for a seven-month deployment. Another 1,200 Marines arrived to train Afghan police.
Musa Qala: realities of COIN
Excellent article and a good find. Whether it will work is a moot point. May return with comments another time. Did the defecting local Taliban leader bring any fighters with him or later? What national / international aid for the locals has arrived since?
Note the role of the Danish and (tiny) Estonian contingents alongside those normally in the foreground.
davidbfpo
Marines find Iraq tactics don't work in Afghanistan
U.S. Marines find Iraq tactics don't work in Afghanistan
Quote:
... The men of the 3rd Batallion, 8th Marine Regiment, based at Camp Lejeune, are discovering in their first two months in Afghanistan that the tactics they learned in nearly six years of combat in Iraq are of little value here — and may even inhibit their ability to fight their Taliban foes.
Their MRAP mine-resistant vehicles, which cost $1 million each, were specially developed to combat the terrible effects of roadside bombs, the single biggest killer of Americans in Iraq. But Iraq is a country of highways and paved roads, and the heavily armored vehicles are cumbersome on Afghanistan's unpaved roads and rough terrain where roadside bombs are much less of a threat.
Body armor is critical to warding off snipers in Iraq, where Sunni Muslim insurgents once made video of American soldiers falling to well-placed sniper shots a staple of recruiting efforts. But the added weight makes Marines awkward and slow when they have to dismount to chase after Taliban gunmen in Afghanistan's rough terrain.
Even the Humvees, finally carrying heavy armor after years of complaints that they did little to mitigate the impact of roadside explosives in Iraq, are proving a liability. Marines say the heavy armor added for protection in Iraq is too rough on the vehicles' transmissions in Afghanistan's much hillier terrain, and the vehicles frequently break down — so often in fact that before every patrol Marine units here designate one Humvee as the tow vehicle.
The Marines have found other differences:
In Iraq, American forces could win over remote farmlands by swaying urban centers. In Afghanistan, there's little connection between the farmlands and the mudhut villages that pass for towns.
In Iraq, armored vehicles could travel on both the roads and the desert. Here, the paved roads are mostly for outsiders - travelers, truckers and foreign troops; to reach the populace, American forces must find unmapped caravan routes that run through treacherous terrain, routes not designed for their modern military vehicles.
In Iraq, a half-hour firefight was considered a long engagement; here, Marines have fought battles that have lasted as long as eight hours against an enemy whose attacking forces have grown from platoon-size to company-size.
...
"Hopefully we have not become wedded to the vehicles," White said, a reference to the MRAPs, which currently are required for every patrol. "We have to set the standard operation procedure for how to do this. This not Iraq."
Two of my best friends from SOI were killed last week with 3/8. All I want is to get away from the driving-around-in-circles boredom here in Anbar and get into the real fight. That's pretty much all the grunts around here talk about.
I've been posting here for a couple of years.
I don't know how many posts here have in essence pointed out that little in Iraq can be transferred to Afghanistan -- but there have been a bunch...
Nor do I know how many posts here have bemoaned that fact that US Forces cannot seem to learn from the lessons of others -- but there have been a bunch...
Sigh. :(
Condolences on the loss of two of your young friends
Please accept condolences on the loss of your two young Marine Corp friends KIA last week.
A quote in your excellent posting today:
Quote:
American forces must find unmapped caravan routes that run through treacherous terrain, routes not designed for their modern military vehicles.
The Afghan Army/national government/or the National Geographic/Geodedic survey of Afghanistan...terrain maps or plats...should be of some help to you Marines to map out and plan routes of travel off the establishe roads.
QUESTION: Have you gone onto the Internet; selected a sector to look at from satellite view on your computer and then tried to use that satellite viewed overview to plan or test plan unique land routes? Just a thought.
Stay safe, hope you get into the type of action you indicate you want, and that God always has His hand on your shoulder.
Tactics, Techniques and Procedures
I too and sorry for the loss of your SOI buddies. I have a Marine son and I know how you all feel about sitting in the desert. My son wasn't because he was in Fallujah 2007. But doesn't want to go back. Marines don't want to waste time.
I have been rebuked for linking my own posts so I won't do that on this one issue (I discussed this report on my own blog). But I will send one link your direction, and the moderators will just have to chill about it. I don't get much traffic from SWJ anyway, so that isn't the point.
The link I am sending your direction concerns what may be in my estimation the most important thing you will see coming from Afghanistan on TTPs. Remember your SOI / MCT, they report says. Iraq has allowed us to become tactically sloppy. The only place you will find this PPT presentation is Michael Yon's site and mine (the down side is, I suppose, that you need Powerpoint to view it). I discussed this with Michael Yon and we both wanted this to get the maximum exposure possible.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2009/...nd-procedures/
As for the initial report to which you point, I am concerned too about trying to implement Iraq tactics in 'Stan. Satellite patrols, for instance, will be useless. Body armor, for instance, needs to be lighter. We have discussed this.
But chasing the Taliban around is not the answer. We need more troops to secure the human and rural terrain.
Best, HPS
Another important difference maybe, ...
Quote:
(from the McClatchy article)
U.S. troops also are frustrated by the different rules of engagement they must operate under in Afghanistan. Until Jan. 1, U.S. forces in Iraq operated under their own rules of engagement. If they saw something suspicious, they could kick down a door, search a home or detain a suspicious person.
But in Afghanistan, they operate under the rules of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, of which U.S. troops are part. Under those regulations, only Afghans can search buildings and detain people.
Since the Law of War, as seen by most NATO nations, tends to follow the path taken by the Eminent Jurists report (discussed in this thread, posts 188-190), there might be more "one hand tied behind the back" in Astan than in Iraq.
On the other hand, US Forces (including USMC) might not find the ROEs a practical problem - adapt, improvise, overcome, etc. So, are the NATO ROEs[*] part of the problem ?
[*] If they are as classified as ours, discussion would have to be limited.