There is one sure way to close with and destroy the enemy...
...by fire and maneuver. That way is through ensuring you put him on the horns of a dilemma. Call it using combined arms to "fix" him, but the result is the same. You force him to make a choice. Often it is a choice between staying and dying under the effects of HE (40mm, 60mm, 120mm, JDAM, etc.), or fleeing and facing the effects of effective and accurate direct fires.
Take away one ingredient of that recipe, and you cannot maneuver effectively, in the Afghanistan context. There is too much deadspace and terrain (to include the human terrain) that allows the enemy to move along after contact is broken.
Now, this business of close combat also involves the task of deciding if you believe it is important enough to send a troop through the door of a dark, musty mud hut, when you can exercise tactical patience, sit back, and call those knuckleheads out to you because you have them surrounded.
I've used the point made by a former Ranger on another board here before. There is nothing that important, besides an American captive, that justifies assaulting a hut/building over here. Nothing at all.
"close enough to blow their last breaths in your face"
In May 2004, approximately 20 British troops in Basra were ambushed and forced out of their vehicles by about 100 Shiite militia fighters. When ammunition ran low, the British troops fixed bayonets and charged the enemy. About 20 militiamen were killed in the assault without any British deaths.
https://www.us.army.mil/suite/collab...?doid=14903470
(requires AKO login)
The attack was sudden and unexpected. Patrolling a notoriously dangerous area of Afghanistan, Bradley Malone and his fellow Royal Marines were caught in a fierce ambush by insurgents.
But, in a remarkable show of calm under extreme pressure, Corporal Malone led his unit in a devastating counter-attack that pitched his men into a close- combat assault.
He ordered his men to fix bayonets, and they charged their attackers in a determined, courageous onslaught that brought them into eye-to-eye contact with the Taleban. In the face of such heroism, the enemy broke and fled for their lives.
http://www.hmforces.co.uk/news/artic...-bravery-award
October 2008 : Lieutenant James 'Jim' Adamson, 24, then a platoon commander, led a bayonet charge against enemy forces that saved the lives of fellow troops while on tour in Afghanistan.
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/122673-s...nst-the-enemy/
Jus' sayin'.
WW2 close quarter enemy film
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jcustis
I have seen a clip that I think you are talking about. On Tarawa...but it was a small group for two-three Japanese soldiers dashing past a blockhouse, and fired upon by a group of Marines who appeared to miss.
Thanks you. I rememeber it wasn't jungle and one was running with his left hand holding the rifle along him.