Moving the Rhod. Fire Force concept to Afghanistan?

[JMA]

Moderators Note: This is a new thread started as a thread http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9069 on Presence Patrolling developed into a new theme. Several posts moved here.


In response to my question "...RLI fire force at the height of the war 84%. Can you venture a guess as to why this stat may be significant?"

It was important to you because you were there, it was important to Rhodesia due to the relative numbers on both sides and it is important as a statistic because it applies to one war in one nation at one time. Can Fire Force tactics be replicated in, say, Afghanistan today? No.

No, the kill rate is important in any war. If you keep killing 80 odd % of all enemy contacted you keep beheading their leadership and do not allow a build up combat experience. It is exponentially better than anything around or below the 10% mark. All armies in all wars should strive to improve their kill rate per contact as the benefits are self evident.

Can the Fire Force be replicated? I don't know and certainly you don't know. As far as I am aware it has not been given any serious thought. I'm sure at some point (probably too late to be of assistance) it will be considered.

[Ken White]

No, the kill rate is important in any war.

Obviously. Further and as you know, that rate is subject to numerous variables and to fudging. IIRC, that quoted Fire Force rate has been called by 'inflated' some who were present. I have no intention of debating that as it is, as I said, broadly irrelevant to this thread.

Can the Fire Force be replicated? I don't know and certainly you don't know...

As a matter of fact, unlike you, I do know. It is not broadly replicable in Afghanistan for several reasons -- even though variations on it are being conducted constantly and have been since 2001. There are many helicopter assaults and a number of small parachute assaults. Note also there is little in the news media about those operations...

Fire Force will not be broadly replicated in Afghanistan for two reasons. The US Army is too risk averse and the operational methodology has limited utility in the effort in Afghanistan as it is currently structured (that could change and the techniques can be used as needed as they are today -- but it is unlikely to change to include large scale use, there simply is no need). Both those reasons are driven by the fact that there is no overarching national interest in the war of choice, not existential, that is Afghanistan today.

[JMA]

Obviously. Further and as you know, that rate is subject to numerous variables and to fudging. IIRC, that quoted Fire Force rate has been called by 'inflated' some who were present. I have no intention of debating that as it is, as I said, broadly irrelevant to this thread.

I would love to know who these "some" were.

There was no incentive to inflate the kills and in any event the Selous Scouts pseudo teams would have pretty accurate numbers on who fire force was called out on. They would say they have a group of 20 for us and we would respond. and at the end of the day there were 17/8 bodies that is what went into the SITREP. Quire simple.

These are Selous Scout figures that I only came across years later. On the ground we took each call-out as it happened, one at a time. Stats were not our game at the time. What we did realise was that we had one real chance to get that insurgent on that given day and we went for it as best we could.

As a matter of fact, unlike you, I do know. It is not broadly replicable in Afghanistan for several reasons -- even though variations on it are being conducted constantly and have been since 2001. There are many helicopter assaults and a number of small parachute assaults. Note also there is little in the news media about those operations...

Fire Force will not be broadly replicated in Afghanistan for two reasons. The US Army is too risk averse and the operational methodology has limited utility in the effort in Afghanistan as it is currently structured (that could change and the techniques can be used as needed as they are today -- but it is unlikely to change to include large scale use, there simply is no need). Both those reasons are driven by the fact that there is no overarching national interest in the war of choice, not existential, that is Afghanistan today.

Come on Ken. Clearly you know next to nothing about the fire force concept. The fire force concept is neither straight forward heli-borne assault nor is it merely a parachute drop. It took us years to figure out and then perfect.

By risk averse do you mean they don't want a helicopter shot down?

And yes the situation on any battlefield is fluid so yes things could change which may require a change of tactics. So maybe it was not correct to say the fire force concept "will not be broadly replicated in Afghanistan" but rather that it may at some future point be attempted to a larger or lesser degree.

But I tend to agree with you that as long as the desire to close with and kill the enemy is not allowed (ROE) or does not exist then correctly there is no point in introducing something which would lead to an increased kill rate with an associated higher risk of casualties.

[William F. Owen]

Can the Fire Force be replicated? I don't know and certainly you don't know. As far as I am aware it has not been given any serious thought. I'm sure at some point (probably too late to be of assistance) it will be considered .

Is it a distinct concept? A great many British officers are well read on the Rhodesian War, but there are a number of factors peculiar to equipment and applications that make direct replication pretty pointless.
Using ISTAR "assets" to cue airmobile forces into contact is not exactly a concept unique to "Fire Force."
I submit that the general concept of operations is pretty well understood, and if applied in current theatres would look substantially different.

[JMA]

Is it a distinct concept? A great many British officers are well read on the Rhodesian War, but there are a number of factors peculiar to equipment and applications that make direct replication pretty pointless.
Using ISTAR "assets" to cue airmobile forces into contact is not exactly a concept unique to "Fire Force."
I submit that the general concept of operations is pretty well understood, and if applied in current theatres would look substantially different.

Thats fine, it evolved specifically in the context of the Rhodesian war at the time using the aircraft and weapons and troops available at the time against that enemy (or those two enemies).

Group Captain Peter Petter Bowyer's book "Winds of Destruction" gives a good insight into the process (from the air force side) that led to the refined final fire force product. Professor Wood's book "Counter Strike from the Sky" is enlightening but is not a text book.

There is an exercise on the go somewhere in North America where the concept and various principles are being workshopped to give an understanding as to why certain things were done in a certain way within the context of aircraft, weapons, equipment available and the enemy and terrain considerations. This I believe includes a practical phase and ends with another workshop as to which of their weapons, troops, aircraft are most suited to such an application the the enemy and terrain environment of their current operational theater. The first serious attempt I have heard of.

What is refreshingly different is that these people are saying "help us understand the concept and the principles so we can see how we can apply them within our current circumstances". Refreshing to see some open minds in decision making positions (somewhere at least). I hope it works out for them.

PS: I would be interested to know how one becomes well read on the Rhodesian War?

[William F. Owen]

PS: I would be interested to know how one becomes well read on the Rhodesian War?

By reading the small number of available books and the large number of magazine articles that got written in the 1980's. While not entirely comprehensive or exhaustive, anything available on the Rhodesian war was a hot topic in the British Army in the 1980's - some of it for not entirely laudable reasons.

[jcustis]

There is an exercise on the go somewhere in North America where the concept and various principles are being workshopped to give an understanding as to why certain things were done in a certain way within the context of aircraft, weapons, equipment available and the enemy and terrain considerations. This I believe includes a practical phase and ends with another workshop as to which of their weapons, troops, aircraft are most suited to such an application the the enemy and terrain environment of their current operational theater. The first serious attempt I have heard of.

What is refreshingly different is that these people are saying "help us understand the concept and the principles so we can see how we can apply them within our current circumstances". Refreshing to see some open minds in decision making positions (somewhere at least). I hope it works out for them.

Who is giving this effort a go, and what is the conceptual framework of the experimentation? I'm keen to get dialed in on the process they are following.

As for the question of portability over to current operations in Afghanistan, I have to side with Ken to some degree when it comes to whether FF ops would work. I agree that risk aversion is going to be one of the greatest detractors. A larger issue is the simple fact that the enemy forces are operating in significantly different ways in terms of their mobility, techniques of camouflage, methods of attack, etc.

One example that is a big difference stems from the fact that the current ROE would never support FF tactics, especially since the Taliban are woven into the populace much more so than ZANLA/ZIPRA terrs were with Rhodesian villagers. In most of my reads, the terr gangs were typically on the move, and could be intercepted as such as they crossed the borders and into the op areas. The pattern of life is vastly different, and although modifications could certainly be made to mimic the effects of FF ops, but through different means, it comes down to a discussion of whether the juice is worth the squeeze. We are working a population-centric strategy, not a counterinsurgent strategy. Until that shift is made, the supporting network of assets, conventional forces, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques, etc., cannot be shifted to suit the heliborne maneuver FF ops excelled at.

[JMA]

As for the question of portability over to current operations in Afghanistan, I have to side with Ken to some degree when it comes to whether FF ops would work. I agree that risk aversion is going to be one of the greatest detractors. A larger issue is the simple fact that the enemy forces are operating in significantly different ways in terms of their mobility, techniques of camouflage, methods of attack, etc.

You are the experts on Afghanistan, John. However, it may be possible to look across the all the Op areas to see where the enemy mobility, techniques of camouflage, methods of attack, etc. may best suit the application of such a concept in a beta test pahse.

I suggest that one needs a point of departure and I suggest should go something like this:

Name: Call it a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) or some name of your own making so as to say that it is a concept YOU are developing based on models of similar elsewhere. This is important because some people just don't like the thought of adopting other peoples ideas.

Outline concept: The QRF concept aims to maximize the numbers of enemy (Taliban) kills and captures in each group which which contact is made. Such a force will be commander from the air by and Airborne Commander who will have armed fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft under direct permanent command together with specialised Infantry trained troops who will be carried by rotary wing aircraft or available for para deployments where circumstances so demand. The QRF will be required to relentlessly pursue the enemy to achieve the maximum result using ISTAR, combat tracking and other tactical means including night fighting techniques. The force must be able to maintain a 24 hour operational presence in the contact area including aircraft, fresh troops, revolving airborne commanders with full logistical and medical support.

We used the example from the Butch Cassidy movie where when the gooks get to the point where they ask "who are those guys" you know you got them where it hurts?

Also I would state that there must be strong general agreement that maximizing the kill rate per contact is important to the war effort in terms of breaking the continuity of control structures the enemy put in place to control the local population.

[Ken White]

Name: Call it a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) or some name of your own making so as to say that it is a concept YOU are developing based on models of similar elsewhere. This is important because some people just don't like the thought of adopting other peoples ideas.

Very valid point. The good news is that we use the QRF term and it has various permutations -- to include the type operation of which you write.

That particular type of op we used heavily in Viet Nam from 1961-72 and we then called it 'Eagle Flight' ...

An Eagle Flight operation was a tactical concept which involved the employment of a small, self-contained, and highly trained heliborne force. Tactical planning emphasised the use of this force to locate and engage the enemy or to pursue and attack an enemy which was fleeing from a larger friendly force. As an airmobile force it was also prepared to engage any enemy force which had been located and fixed by other friendly forces. The inherent flexibility of the Eagle Flight as a force that was ready for immediate commitment, either alone or in conjunction with other forces, was it's most significant feature.

An 'Eagle Flight' was a variation of the normal heliborne operations developed in Vietnam in order to:

* complement the operations of committed heliborne or ground forces
* extend the combat effectiveness of such forces
* operate independently, either alone or reinforced, on a variety of missions

As it's name implies, it was a force that was designed to search for, pursue and attack it's quarry.(emphasis added /kw)

LINK

Disregard the site type, that's a good, accurate and concise description regardless. There's plenty of other info on the concept from other sources available through Google.

Occasionally, when required, fixed wing aircraft were also used. Generally in Viet Nam due to the size of the country and location of forces, no parachute capability was required (Though the entire First Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division [Airmobile] was initially parachute qualified for that purpose). Success in Viet Nam was mixed, usually they were effective, sometimes extremely effective. Occasionally range / time / bureaucratic constraints allowed Clyde to escape.

In Afghanistan, it is sometimes is required and is used by elements of SF and SOF including the 75th Ranger Regiment; one company of 3-504 Parachute Infantry made one jump in conjunction with a heliborne force and other parachute elements. There have probably been others. One of the problems with the concept in Afghanistan is the large amount of open and large amount of very mountainous terrain. The density altitude has an effect on aircraft capability in some places as well.

The current usage is in fact to call it a QRF (or a local peculiar name) but the Eagle Flight concept dates from the late 50s in the US Army and was the model for several variants in other nations.

[JMA]

One example that is a big difference stems from the fact that the current ROE would never support FF tactics, especially since the Taliban are woven into the populace much more so than ZANLA/ZIPRA terrs were with Rhodesian villagers. In most of my reads, the terr gangs were typically on the move, and could be intercepted as such as they crossed the borders and into the op areas. The pattern of life is vastly different, and although modifications could certainly be made to mimic the effects of FF ops, but through different means, it comes down to a discussion of whether the juice is worth the squeeze. We are working a population-centric strategy, not a counterinsurgent strategy. Until that shift is made, the supporting network of assets, conventional forces, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques, etc., cannot be shifted to suit the heliborne maneuver FF ops excelled at.

Initially the terrs would sleep in the villages with the locals to enjoy the comforts that they indulged in. The first trick was to get them out of the villages at night and was achieved to great extent through a series of army/police joint of separate "knock-ups" of the villages at night. This forced the terrs base in camps in the bush near villages and only resort to sleeping in the villages when it rained.

Once that was achieved it gave air recce the opportunity to check for track patterns which would give away the location of such a base. Or an OP would be able to spot out of the ordinary movement between the village and this area of bush. (Food or water being carried, sometimes blankets etc.) Best OPs being manned by black troops who would notice in an instant if something was up.

Given that yes we had no ROE and while that said certainly there was no gratuitous killing of civilians where I was involved. There were times where the gooks put on dresses or tried to blend in with the locals then we just cordoned off the area, handed over to local police or army callsign and left them sift through the mass of humanity with the of police SB (Special Branch). So yes one has to either get them to separate themselves from the locals or hide their weapons and try to blend in with the local and then offer the locals some secret means of indicating who the Taliban are. It was mentioned in another thread somewhere how the value a biometric (fingerprint) database would have. Very quick then to identify who is not from that village. Should be a cinch using modern technology and getting the locals to register for all the aid they receive (probably being done already).

If the enemy separate then the game is on using trackers/ISTAR or whatever.

I don't see a QRF affecting local ops and troops other than where the response is to them getting ambushed or whatever. Clearly there would need to be coordination and knowledge of where these friendly forces are and maybe they could be drawn in to assist with the follow up/pursuit phase.

[MikeF]

Published this morning in the Journal

Securing and Holding Rural Terrain:
Use of Pseudo Teams and Airmobile “Very-Light” Infantry Quick Reaction Forces in Rhodesia Counter-Insurgency Operations
by Timothy Bax and Steven Hatfill

[JMA]

Published this morning in the Journal

Securing and Holding Rural Terrain:
Use of Pseudo Teams and Airmobile “Very-Light” Infantry Quick Reaction Forces in Rhodesia Counter-Insurgency Operations
by Timothy Bax and Steven Hatfill

This is a good document and reflects accurately the Fireforce concept of my personal experience.

[Infanteer]

An interesting article, if anything for the technical aspects. These pop-up once in a while - I have a MCG article explaining a similar approach taken by a Marine outfit in Iraq that apparently worked well. A few thoughts:

1. The article needs references. The authors are pulling out percentages of kills/contact in various conflicts and make no reference to where this information came from. How do they know that the percentages are accurate? How was the data collected? I can put up any numbers I want and say they are facts, but this doesn't make them true.

2. There is a bit of romanticism involved with the "Fireforce Concept" - let's get away from clumsy, slow patrols and have a fast-moving, roving squad that kills anything it catches. Sounds nice, but there is nothing that says "conventional COIN tactics" are any better or worse at killing insurgents; the authors don't make a case by throwing out figures with no primary sources. History certainly doesn't back this up, as Malaya isn't a communist country and Rhodesia can only be found in 30 year old atlases. To be fair, the authors do differentiate between the tactical aspects and the sociopolitical ones, but I still find it hard to take the "these are better tactics" argument at face value.

3. That being said, I found the authors did make numerous excellent points. Number 1 is that the hardest thing is cut-off. We studied and practiced cut-off before our deployment, but the difficulty in reality is something else. Having 4 "G-Cars" with 4-man sticks sitting in a FOB or roaming around the AO to be plunked out after a TIC occurs is an awesome idea.

4. The second really good point from the paper is the Pseudo-Teams as the primary method of locating insurgents. Indigineous irregular forces are the best at hunting bad-guys - the experience of the South Vietnamese PRUs is another example (and Mark Moyar's book gives the figures to back the claim). The two roadblocks in Afghanistan are the lack of a integrated efforts between the Afghan Forces (ANA, ANP, NDS) and the total barrier that exists between conventional and special operations forces. It's like two armies running two wars, and if this wasn't sorted out, the chances for blue on blue would be huge. Not saying this can't be sorted out in Afghanistan, but these two impediments need big-time political muscle to sort out if you want to employ pseudo-teams with a hunter-killer element such as a Fireforce.

5. I read somewhere, and JMA can confirm this, that the Para-dak was employed because there wasn't enough birds for G-Cars. I think putting 4-5 sticks in a CH-47 would be more flexible than trying to parachute soldiers into Afghan grapefields.

6. In a previous debate on this very thread, I questioned the appplicability of a "direct copy", such as the article suggests, of the Fireforce concept to Afghanistan. A very small, dense AO and the socio-political standing of the Afghan qala can make something like this tricky to pull off. As I said, going from Maiwand to Arghandab (covering most of the Kandahar insurgency) doesn't take long and Helmand has similar geography. Helicopters are likely to just see farmers unless they are already finding a TIC. Pursuit can be very difficult to almost impossible - I remember reading about the Koevoet (different bush war) bashing bushes and chasing spoor; you'd lose spoor pretty quickly as insurgents on the back of their bike make their way to a bazaar. As someone said previously, "context, context, context".

7. How to take elements of this? I still think the best element is the very quick airmobile cutoff. I was kicking this around in my mind the other day. 7 Birds in a bigger FOB would work (2 x Kiowa (K-Car), 4 x Utility (G-Car), 1 x Cargo (Reserve)). The key would be having a system which allowed the G-Cars to respond to TICs and employ cut-off immediately and for the Reserve to deploy, perhaps with Afghan special police, to sweep compounds once it was determined that cut-off was affected.

Anyways, my 2 cents.

[jcustis]

Wed have to strip those Kiowa down to bare bones if we ever wanted to keep the commander aloft, and allow for a bit of armament. The power ratio of those things leave a lot to be desired, or so several pilots have told me here and there.

I dig the prospect of using them for follow-ups in constricting and complex terrain, which limits both vehicular and even dismounted movement at time. With the right tactics, we could do some harm, but again (as you remind infanteer) it's about context and the cost of the squeeze.

As you also mentioned, the cutoff is so difficult, and the insurgents often excel at ensuring their limited engagement window (in terms of both time and arc) is offset by well-planned egress routes that allow them to "gap it" either very quickly or efficiently as they blend into the background.

[JMA]

Wed have to strip those Kiowa down to bare bones if we ever wanted to keep the commander aloft, and allow for a bit of armament. The power ratio of those things leave a lot to be desired, or so several pilots have told me here and there.

Consider this. The Rhodesian gunship had its 20mm cannon sticking out the left hand side.



The FF Commander (FFC) sat on the seat forward of the cannon facing the port side. In a left hand orbit both the FFC and the gunner could observe the target area at all times (as could the pilot).

Now with the 'modern' choppers weapons firing forwards it would put the commander out of the game when a target was being engaged. Perhaps a modern FF version would place the FFC in a separate chopper which has a good loiter time and maybe a small pod of rockets to be used to indicate a target to the gunships or other aircraft. Then the gunships would be role specific and remain overhead unless one at a time leaving the area to refuel/rearm.

[JMA]

The yanks have got it sorted already.



MH-6j / AH-6j Little Bird Helicopter http://www.americanspecialops.com/images/soar/mh-6.jpg

Well a wild comment without considering issues like lift capacity at altitude etc etc.

It seems that a chopper able to land 4-men on a dime getting in and out quick into a small LZ is in the US system and being used for just that task.

Seems good enough but I assume you need to dress for the weather as the chill factor sitting outside the chopper must be quite something.

[JMA]

In reply I will attempt to separate the historical Rhodesian Fire Force experience from any speculation on how or whether the concept could be adapted to Afghanistan or any other theatre.

A few thoughts:
1. The article needs references. The authors are pulling out percentages of kills/contact in various conflicts and make no reference to where this information came from. How do they know that the percentages are accurate? How was the data collected? I can put up any numbers I want and say they are facts, but this doesn't make them true.

The country no longer exists, what documentation was left behind is probably lost, what was sent out of the country is spread out all over the show and what was taken out by individuals remains in their private hands and not in the main publicly shared.

I have figures very similar from other sources (not published references) so effectively you are left with a take-it-or-leave-it option.

The source of the Brit SAS figures from Malaya, I don't know, but seem to be unchallenged by those who were there or have access to the Brit archives (other questioning is ignored).

The Rhodesian figures cited sound right to me and again have never been challenged by those in the know then (again speculative challenges are ignored). Perhaps for ease and simplicity Bax/Hatfill use the kill rate of the Jumbo Fire Force (more helicopters) as the overall average but then if they have access to the stats they could be correct. As I have it up to the end of 1976 the average kill rate was +70%. In 1977 it dropped (for a variety of reasons) to 50% or below and then from 1978 onwards with additional choppers (and other improvements) there was a steady climb up into the +80%.

I can't think of a reason why anyone 60 years old and over would want to inflate this percentage 30 years after the fact. Can you?

The data would have been available through the daily SITREPS issued from the various Bde/JOC/COMOPS sources which would include dare/time/place of contact, the originating call-sign, number of CTs contacted, Number of CTs killed/captured etc etc. I understand that a fair amount of this stuff is sitting in trunks in a military museum in the UK. (CT = communist terrorist)

2. There is a bit of romanticism involved with the "Fireforce Concept" - let's get away from clumsy, slow patrols and have a fast-moving, roving squad that kills anything it catches. Sounds nice, but there is nothing that says "conventional COIN tactics" are any better or worse at killing insurgents; the authors don't make a case by throwing out figures with no primary sources. History certainly doesn't back this up, as Malaya isn't a communist country and Rhodesia can only be found in 30 year old atlases. To be fair, the authors do differentiate between the tactical aspects and the sociopolitical ones, but I still find it hard to take the "these are better tactics" argument at face value.

How the Fire Force has been romanticised is that so few people outside a small group of Rhodesians (mainly RLI and Blue-jobs) understand what it was all about.

The Fire Force worked in conjunction with other more 'conventional' ground forces. The FF responded in support of troops in contact (firefights/ambushes/attacks/etc) and also as a result of intel relating to a confirmed presence of a group of CTs when the FF was deployed to attack this group - on the basis of the (seemingly no old-fashioned) to close with and kill the enemy.

The FF was a hugely successful tactical innovation of the Rhodesians which certainly had war winning potential (had it been correctly resourced from the early days and the government been able to fund the high cost (in comparison to normal infantry operations.))

Look at what Bax/Hatfill list as FF objectives:

Fire- Force Objectives
A deployed Fire-Force has two principle objectives:
To contain and eliminate terrorists by forcing them to retain weapons and fight, thus denying them opportunity to hide weapons, assume civilian disguise, and escape.
To deny terrorists the protective advantages of cover by thick walls, rock formations, river banks and multiple points of dispersion. This is done via ground encirclement by aggressive troops and steep-angled, heavy caliber fire from the air.
There are two secondary objectives:
1. To actively display to local tribal clans the strength of Government forces and thereby counter claims to the contrary initiated by insurgents.
2. To deter tribesmen from opting voluntarily to join the ranks of terrorists through visible successes and dead terrorist bodies.

The first two are to deny the enemy the ability to use hit-and-run tactics as the reaction to any contact will be rapid (time dependent of flying time from base or a pre-positioning location (somewhere central to the operational area and/or close to where recce troops are deployed or other troops involved in ops likely to make contact with the enemy). Important then but limited to day light as choppers had no night flying capability (1979).

The secondary objectives serve to off-set the collateral damage of a highly kinetic FF action where civilians were 'caught in the crossfire' and/or those civilians (contact men/scouts/guides/concubines/etc) who were deemed to be 'running with the CTs' got caught up in the contact.

The socio-political stuff did not come into it... and such considerations do not diminish from the success of the FF concept (as a tactical innovation).

3. That being said, I found the authors did make numerous excellent points. Number 1 is that the hardest thing is cut-off. We studied and practiced cut-off before our deployment, but the difficulty in reality is something else. Having 4 "G-Cars" with 4-man sticks sitting in a FOB or roaming around the AO to be plunked out after a TIC occurs is an awesome idea.

In the early days of FF the CTs were less aware of the importance of carefully siting their locations of temporary bases etc. Once they wised up and realised that there should be a number of different escape routes the importance of having enough G-cars to immediately close those routes (as opposed to waiting for the second wave to be lifted-in 15 min plus later) became evident. They looked towards rocky areas with caves where they could hide and escape detection or if discovered it became a major exercise to winkle them out (looking back can't for the life of me think why we did not use flame-throwers).

At ground level the appreciation of where to place cut-off groups (stop groups as we called them) is very difficult and almost impossible to deploy in time to contain the enemy within. On arrival overhead the FF commander took over and the call sign in contact normally marked its position then sat tight while the FF did the business. (This to prevent possible blue-on-blue incidents when troops unfamiliar with FF ops get involved) In addition there were always tracking teams on standby who could be flown in (not to do CSI type crap but) to get on the spoor ASAP. Follow up troops from the unit in whose area the contact took place could also be flown in and an aggressive follow-up (including leap-frogging trackers forward to cut for spoor) could be initiated by the local unit (and assisted by the FF for as long as they were in the area).

4. The second really good point from the paper is the Pseudo-Teams as the primary method of locating insurgents. Indigineous irregular forces are the best at hunting bad-guys - the experience of the South Vietnamese PRUs is another example (and Mark Moyar's book gives the figures to back the claim). The two roadblocks in Afghanistan are the lack of a integrated efforts between the Afghan Forces (ANA, ANP, NDS) and the total barrier that exists between conventional and special operations forces. It's like two armies running two wars, and if this wasn't sorted out, the chances for blue on blue would be huge. Not saying this can't be sorted out in Afghanistan, but these two impediments need big-time political muscle to sort out if you want to employ pseudo-teams with a hunter-killer element such as a Fireforce.

Use only same tribe/clan in any area (local knowledge is key) for that type of work. That's obvious.

You are 100 % correct with the latter comments.

One of the better Rhodesian FF Commanders who commanded a FF for fully the last three years of the war (on a six weeks on ops, two weeks R&R basis) has told me he believes that the FF was the end product of a philosophy that cut through the interservice rivalry, vested interests, convention, rank, petty rule books and personal agenda’s so prevalent in the behaviour of the modern military. I agree with him and believe that this aspect if not addressed would lead to the failure of any attempt to replicate a FF derivative anywhere else.

5. I read somewhere, and JMA can confirm this, that the Para-dak was employed because there wasn't enough birds for G-Cars. I think putting 4-5 sticks in a CH-47 would be more flexible than trying to parachute soldiers into Afghan grapefields.

Correct, paras were used because of a shortage of choppers and in an attempt to bring an additional 16-20 troops into the contact quicker than having to send G-cars back to fetch more or wait for the land-tail to catch up with the deployment.

6. In a previous debate on this very thread, I questioned the appplicability of a "direct copy", such as the article suggests, of the Fireforce concept to Afghanistan. A very small, dense AO and the socio-political standing of the Afghan qala can make something like this tricky to pull off.

I don't think anyone would suggest a direct copy as ground (terrain) and enemy are so different and there are many technological advances available today that were not available then.

[Fuchs]

The whole thing differs considerably from the German approach in WW2 (Jagdkommandos).

The Germans attempted to do this in addition to guarding specific sites such as railway bridges and city centres, escorting trains, raiding known partisan locations and checking on railway lines:
# small teams (nowadays they would be called LRRP) patrolled in order to find partisans
# large platoon-sized small units (ideally led by very autonomous, unorthodox, almost undisciplined junior officers) patrolled the country for days or weeks, trying to establish contact with partisans in some advantageous way.
The small patrols would -if they found partisans- call for the large patrols as strike forces.

This was only a description of how it was meant to be close the end of the war; the actual counter-partisan effort in the East was mostly crude, employing men unsuitable for front service and utterly under-resourced.


The autonomous platoon-sized patrol evolved post-WW2 into a German-Austrian infantry tactic (Jagdkampf) for conventional warfare.

[Infanteer]

I can't think of a reason why anyone 60 years old and over would want to inflate this percentage 30 years after the fact. Can you?

I can think of a bevy of reasons. BH Liddell Hart frequently presented false or misconstrued historical data to back up his own belief on how things work. Perhaps these authors want to prove that their argument that "fireforce tactics are more effective than conventional COIN tactics".

Perhaps not - I am in no way insinuating that they made the figures up or pulled them out of thin air; perhaps they are going with "what they know", figures that were commonly accepted as fact back during the war that have persisted until know. Other common myths like the "3:1" rule persist under the same logic.

Fact is, nobody can say what it is because there is absolutely no reference at all to the Malayan or Rhodesian figures and the objective reader can't go off of the author's word only. There needs to be, at the very least, an explanation as too how such figures are derived or where they originated from.

When it comes down to it, this is an interesting piece that I enjoyed but it can only be taken as a matter of historical opinion rather than a concrete historical examination of tactics.

[JMA]

I can think of a bevy of reasons. BH Liddell Hart frequently presented false or misconstrued historical data to back up his own belief on how things work. Perhaps these authors want to prove that their argument that "fireforce tactics are more effective than conventional COIN tactics".

The difference is though that Liddel-Hart was allegedly doing it to enhance his own personal reputation. (Like his alleged prompting of German gen
influenced by his writing) As the police would say there you have motive.

Perhaps not - I am in no way insinuating that they made the figures up or pulled them out of thin air; perhaps they are going with "what they know", figures that were commonly accepted as fact back during the war that have persisted until know. Other common myths like the "3:1" rule persist under the same logic.

For example I know that JRT Wood has stats from his time in RIC (Rhodesian Intelligence Corps) when he specifically studied Fire Force operations. I assume Bax has Selous Scouts stats to support his figures. So we are really at a take-it-or-leave-it situation.

Fact is, nobody can say what it is because there is absolutely no reference at all to the Malayan or Rhodesian figures and the objective reader can't go off of the author's word only. There needs to be, at the very least, an explanation as too how such figures are derived or where they originated from.

I will pass that on to the authors

When it comes down to it, this is an interesting piece that I enjoyed but it can only be taken as a matter of historical opinion rather than a concrete historical examination of tactics.

I suggest that the only aspect subject to query is the claim to the 80% kill rate (and then only because the source is not a published document). For the rest the history as written by Bax/Hatfill is accurate. You can take my word for that and I could probably get 100 odd people who served to sign an affidavit to that effect. Their recommendations for the application of the FF concept in today's wars is what is open to debate (not the history).

What seems to be getting up your nose is the quote "fireforce tactics are more effective than conventional COIN tactics".

This what they said:

The conventional counter-insurgency tactics of foot patrols, ambushes, tracking, aerial reconnaissance and local interrogation/interdiction techniques have proven largely ineffective in locating and killing terrorists during past campaigns.

and this:

If the US Military is to become serious about winning the war on terror, it must abandon the shackles of past conventional tactics and become more adaptable at finding, engaging and killing an enemy that is ruthless, cunning, and fleet-footed.

As to the first comment I agree fully (from my personal experience). The productivity/reward/results/whatever from the type of operations mentioned is low. This low productivity may have become an accepted way things are but perhaps if one sat down and calculated the number of man hours used to find and kill/capture an insurgent one would find oneself on agreement with Bax/Hatfill on this. The game changer of course is good real-time intel to act upon. What percentage of these type of ops are mounted upon hard real-time intel? What could we say here... that most are speculative and based on guess work and worked around how many call-signs are available to deploy that must be deployed rather than let them sit around the base until good intel pops up.

So if a call-sign has a contact... eureka... you have found the insurgents. Now the trick is surely to do whatever you can to keep in contact with them so as to extract the maximum number of causalities. Now if there is a QRF (of some type) that can help you achieve this then surely you want to use them, yes? You need fresh troops and probably trackers to get right after them and keep the pressure on. The modern night imaging equipment allows all operations to continue through the night. Again more pressure.

The idea is surely to make contact, keep contact and extract the maximum casualties in the process, yes? Helicopters (to move troops rapidly, as gunships and as an airborne command platform) can be useful in this process.

As to the second comment it is up to the US military to respond to that.

...and from what I have heard these HVT hits are really very similar to a Fire Force action at night. They know where the bad guy is, the launch an airborne raid/attack against him/them... and they close with and kill him/them. Then they get into the aircraft and go home. Perhaps rather than try to adopt this from the 'bottom up' it is better to do like the Brits have done and attach a battalion (1 Para) to special forces and let them cut their teeth on easier targets and then expand the targets to any Taliban groups (not just HVT leadership) both day and night.