Moving the Rhod. Fire Force concept to Afghanistan?

[Starbuck]

When I created a "COIN for Aviators" class, I used the example of the Rhodesian light infantry as a prime example of a rudimentary Quick Reaction Force. While some of the specifics seem to have changed (parachute drop vs. helicopter landing), the concept seems largely the same as a modern-day QRF.

It's important we put much of the RLI's tactics in perspective: their development of a parachute-in approach was the result of a lack of helicopter transports. The RLI's air assets would be dwarfed by a modern-day Army Combat Aviation Brigade, with seven C-47s (DC-3s) and eight Alouette helicopters (plus a few miscellaneous fighters and bombers) consisting of the entire air contingent. That was about it. The entire air lift portion would be dwarfed by a mere two companies in an assault helicopter battalion.

Thus, the concept of parachuting in was one of necessity. While it might sound attractive and novel, it was not without its shortfalls. A DC-3 can only travel at around 130 knots, which is roughly the cruise speed of a Black Hawk or Chinook. Each C-47 also had a payload of, at maximum, 26 paratroopers. According to James Corum, approximately 20-30 RLI troops would be dispatched at any given time against insurgent bands (numbering anywhere from 6-30 men). Their primary mission would be to defend white homesteads against insurgent attacks. Thus, they were to hold ground. Their air support would be a Alouette helicopters with aerial munitions.

Dropping paratroopers in to combat--sometimes at 300' AGL--was a risky proposition. Certainly, based on experience in airborne units, this would be about as dangerous as the enemy.

The RLI's air units were often tipped off by the Selous Scouts or horse-mounted scouts, many of whom might perform the same roles as UAVs.

Modern QRFs might consist of a platoon on alert with some UH-60s and AH-64s for fire support--not at all unlike the RLI's concept. Indeed, it appears we have a very similar set of TTPS, at least superficially.

The difference might be in the kill ratios, which would be interesting to examine. The RLI killed over 1600 insugents, with minimal losses, according to Corham. Why might this be so? It's worth looking in to.

It should also be noted that, despite the RLI's professionalism, they were ultimately voted out of power in the early 1980s, giving rise to modern Zimbabwe. Tactics are important, no doubt, but strategy and politics always win.

[Starbuck]

1) Were they doing something others weren't, or ISAF isn't; or

2) Were the conditions (poor opponent, terrain, ROE, etc) that led to the RLI's apparent operational success something that can't be replicated in Afghanistan; or

3) Are the contact and kill rates claimed for the RLI accurate.

As far as I can see, those are the three logical possibilities--and working out which apply is the purpose of the thread.

Rex: These are the million-dollar questions. Let me try to investigate the RLI and Zimbabwe and find out.

[Starbuck]

Question here for the peanut gallery: Does the difference between insurgents in Rhodesia and those in Afghanistan depend on scale? Are we picking the right battles?

A typical Rhodesian TTP, from what I have seen, involved massing for raids against White settlements. Questions:

1.) How often were the insurgents detected and acted upon?
2.) What was the terrain like around these settlements? How close were they to villages?
3.) How does the "body count" compare to Taliban raids against, say, COP Keating and Wanat?

[jcustis]

3.) How does the "body count" compare to Taliban raids against, say, COP Keating and Wanat?

If I remember correctly, either Wanat or Keating involved 30 5-man teams. No gang of ZANLA or ZIPRA was that large at the point of attack on a settlement. those number were encountered on external ops in home camps, but I have never seen a number that high mentioned in the Operational Areas of Rhodesia.

[JMA]

If I remember correctly, either Wanat or Keating involved 30 5-man teams. No gang of ZANLA or ZIPRA was that large at the point of attack on a settlement. those number were encountered on external ops in home camps, but I have never seen a number that high mentioned in the Operational Areas of Rhodesia.

Never would they dare move in those numbers in areas where fire force could respond. They had their attempts when ammo resup had to be done and then they might try it. If such groups were found the air support would be increased to jets. Find them, fix them, kill them.

Attacks on settlements were few and far between. Seemingly for propaganda value about which they could exaggerate the numbers of security forces killed.

[davidbfpo]

Question here for the peanut gallery: A typical Rhodesian TTP, from what I have seen, involved massing for raids against White settlements. Questions:

1.) How often were the insurgents detected and acted upon?
2.) What was the terrain like around these settlements? How close were they to villages?
3.) How does the "body count" compare to Taliban raids against, say, COP Keating and Wanat?

Starbuck,

There is too often a focus on the external operations which were against camps of fighters and civilians, seen as containing hundreds plus of potential and actual guerillas who in due course would infiltrate across the border and commence operations in the African TTL and sometimes the white farming areas. In reality the main focus of the Rhodesian war was internal and as Cilliers observed without much strategic thought till near the end.

From my little "armchair" understanding and visiting in 1985 the white farming areas always had Africans nearby, sometimes in the crowded TTL, but you need a map to see the reality. JMA and other Rhodesians know better.

If you extract the kill rate in external operations, where sometimes thousands were killed, the internal kill rate IMHO would plunge, but for a white community each dead / other causes guerilla was a gain.

[Fuchs]

Maybe kill rate is a poor metric.

I for one would prefer to have a "weapons looted from dead bodies" vs. "own KIA" statistic.

That war wasn't even close to being a clean one, and statistics can be ugly things.

[JMA]

Maybe kill rate is a poor metric.

I for one would prefer to have a "weapons looted from dead bodies" vs. "own KIA" statistic.

That war wasn't even close to being a clean one, and statistics can be ugly things.

To be classed as a gook he had to have a weapon. No weapon, not a gook.
We collected them and the equipment and stuff in the pockets and sent it back for probably later use by pseudo teams.

[JMA]

Question here for the peanut gallery: Does the difference between insurgents in Rhodesia and those in Afghanistan depend on scale? Are we picking the right battles?

A typical Rhodesian TTP, from what I have seen, involved massing for raids against White settlements.

Not the typical Rhodesian, rather the typical insurgent. They would gather a bunch together to take on lone homestead which were pretty well secured, seldom press home an attach and disappear to fight another day. They disappeared because they knew that by first light there would be trackers dropped to follow up put some distance between them and the contact area by morning.

Questions:

1.) How often were the insurgents detected and acted upon?

The commanders had to analyse the intel and see where their best efforts were to deploy troops. If the Selous Scouts were in your area there was a certainty there would be intel coming on which deploy and kill.

2.) What was the terrain like around these settlements? How close were they to villages?

They lived close to the villages for food and sex. Moving around to spread the foot load across all the villages in the area. The distance depended on the lie of the land. 200, 300, 400m?

3.) How does the "body count" compare to Taliban raids against, say, COP Keating and Wanat?

I don't know these raids. Were they Taliban raids against your COPs?

[JMA]

According to James Corum, approximately 20-30 RLI troops would be dispatched at any given time against insurgent bands (numbering anywhere from 6-30 men). Their primary mission would be to defend white homesteads against insurgent attacks. Thus, they were to hold ground. Their air support would be a Alouette helicopters with aerial munitions.

OK, we have a problem here. With respect to James Corum there was not "white homestead protection" as a primary mission. The primary role of the Fire Force was to kill the enemy. Farmhouses were in the main attacked at night the helos in Rhodesia had no night flying capability.

Dropping paratroopers in to combat--sometimes at 300' AGL--was a risky proposition. Certainly, based on experience in airborne units, this would be about as dangerous as the enemy.

The aim was to drop them at 90 knots from 500' and the ground height was normally measured by a touch landing by a helo and the tossing of a smoke generator. There were some accidents, not too many considering the number of jumps. There are chutes now available which make jumping at lower heights safe and should be used as it is in the air that the para is most vulnerable to enemy fire and wind etc. The injury statistics were not of the magnitude that gave rise to any concern so why your airborne contacts should be concerned is open to question. Maybe if you only have jumped at 800' with boots and not sneakers any other option seems a little risky, yes?

The RLI's air units were often tipped off by the Selous Scouts or horse-mounted scouts, many of whom might perform the same roles as UAVs.

Call-outs by Selous Scouts pseudo groups were responsible for 68% of all internal kills by the various Fire Forces. The Grey's Scouts (horse guys) played a small role in this regard.

Modern QRFs might consist of a platoon on alert with some UH-60s and AH-64s for fire support--not at all unlike the RLI's concept. Indeed, it appears we have a very similar set of TTPS, at least superficially.

The key would be under what ROE would this QRF deploy and the operational procedures once in combat.

The difference might be in the kill ratios, which would be interesting to examine. The RLI killed over 1600 insugents, with minimal losses, according to Corham. Why might this be so? It's worth looking in to.

The idea was to kill as many of each group contacted as possible. There were three tactical rules on the use of ground forces on such ops. 1) Never "sweep" uphill, 2) Never 'sweep' into the sun, 3) never 'sweep' from open ground into cover. (For others here: this probably accounts for my aversion for seeing toops moving over open ground.)

It should also be noted that, despite the RLI's professionalism, they were ultimately voted out of power in the early 1980s, giving rise to modern Zimbabwe. Tactics are important, no doubt, but strategy and politics always win.

Point taken but how this applies to the Fire Force concept and its TTPs is less obvious?

[Rifleman]

Modern QRFs might consist of a platoon on alert with some UH-60s and AH-64s for fire support--not at all unlike the RLI's concept. Indeed, it appears we have a very similar set of TTPS, at least superficially.

FWIW, it's also not at all unlike the Viet Nam era air cavalry. When I say air cavalry, I don't mean airmobile infantry battalions but the cavalry squadrons made famous (infamous?) by Apocolype Now's portrayal of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1/9 Headhunters) of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Supposedly 1/9 was responsble for more kills than all the airmoble infantry battalions in the 1st Cavalry Division?

The squadron had three troops with each troop having a red, white, and blue platoon. I think red was aero-guns, white was aero-scouts, and blue was aero-rifles?

Does the Army still use that particular organization?

[slapout9]

FWIW, it's also not at all unlike the Viet Nam era air cavalry. When I say air cavalry, I don't mean airmobile infantry battalions but the cavalry squadrons made famous (infamous?) by Apocolype Now's portrayal of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1/9 Headhunters) of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Supposedly 1/9 was responsble for more kills than all the airmoble infantry battalions in the 1st Cavalry Division?

The squadron had three troops with each troop having a red, white, and blue platoon. I think red was aero-guns, white was aero-scouts, and blue was aero-rifles?

Does the Army still use that particular organization?

You got it man and what is that book I can never remember the correct name of? "Brannon'sWar???? or something like that"

[baboon6]

You got it man and what is that book I can never remember the correct name of? "Brannon'sWar???? or something like that"

Brennan's War by Matthew Brennan, there is also an anthology of other personal stories from 1/9 edited by him entitled Headhunters.

The "Blue" (aero-rifle) platoons don't exist anymore, haven't since sometime in the 1980s. AFAIK divisional Air Cav squadrons today are equipped only with OH-58s; other battalions within the aviation brigade have AH-64s and UH-60s. However the 3rd ACR's aviation squadron has all three types of helicopter.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...rmy/4-3acr.htm

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...my/2-17cav.htm

[baboon6]

FWIW, it's also not at all unlike the Viet Nam era air cavalry. When I say air cavalry, I don't mean airmobile infantry battalions but the cavalry squadrons made famous (infamous?) by Apocolype Now's portrayal of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1/9 Headhunters) of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Supposedly 1/9 was responsble for more kills than all the airmoble infantry battalions in the 1st Cavalry Division?

The squadron had three troops with each troop having a red, white, and blue platoon. I think red was aero-guns, white was aero-scouts, and blue was aero-rifles?

Does the Army still use that particular organization?

Air Cavalry squadrons in Vietnam also had a fourth troop which was a ground troop mounted in jeeps and 3/4 ton trucks. As regarding the three other troops you are correct, the "Blues" also included its own lift element of Hueys. Each of the divsional armoured cavalry sqns also had an air cav troop organised the same as the ones in air cav sqns. Today as I wrote above most air cav sqns have several troops of Kiowas and nothing else; 3rdACRs sqn has Apaches, Blackhawks and Kiowas in separate troops. None have an infantry element. Here are a few good sites on Air Cav in Vietnam:

http://northwestvets.com/spurs/spurs.htm

http://www.ruthlessriders.net/

http://www.eleven-bravo.co.uk/the-wa...-cav-troop.php

[JMA]

FWIW, it's also not at all unlike the Viet Nam era air cavalry. When I say air cavalry, I don't mean airmobile infantry battalions but the cavalry squadrons made famous (infamous?) by Apocolype Now's portrayal of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry (1/9 Headhunters) of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Supposedly 1/9 was responsble for more kills than all the airmoble infantry battalions in the 1st Cavalry Division?

The squadron had three troops with each troop having a red, white, and blue platoon. I think red was aero-guns, white was aero-scouts, and blue was aero-rifles?

Does the Army still use that particular organization?

Ok, let just make a comment here.

What made fire force was not that the use of helicopters to carry the troops into battle and as a gun platform but rather how the the troops and the firepower were deployed. Airmoble does not mean fire force (in the Rhodesian sense). How to survive a fire force action was to either show incredible land speed ability and get out of the area before the troops could be placed in stop positions or crawl into a cave or something like that and lie low and hope not to be found.

Koevoet (the police reaction force) in SWA/Namibia used mainly vehicles as their mode of transport and had a different MO as they followed-up insurgents after an incident until contact as opposed to what we in Rhodesia did was react to a specific report of presence of insurgents probably without the insurgents knowing. Their trick was to leap-frog ahead to cut for spoor so as to speed up the whole follow-up process. How to survive a Koevoet follow-up was either to anti-track to such a high degree that the spoor was lost, get in front of a herd of cattle and let them walk all over their spoor or just plain find a hole somewhere and hide until the men and vehicles had gone.

It was a kind of natural selection, the fleet of foot and the cunning survived and those who wanted to make a fight of it had not chance of survival even if they did take some soldiers with them.

[Rifleman]

Ok, let just make a comment here.

What made fire force was not that the use of helicopters to carry the troops into battle and as a gun platform but rather how the the troops and the firepower were deployed.

Understood, I didn't mean to suggest that the air cav operated exactly like the fire force. I'm sure the tactical situations and operational requirments faced by each unit were unique to time and place.

It just stuck me that there was a similarity in that both deployed (and redeployed) rapidly, often making multiple combat assaults the same day.

Airmoble does not mean fire force (in the Rhodesian sense).

Understood again. I also tried to point out that in the U.S. sense the air cavalry squadrons were unique from the airmobile infantry battalions, even though the airmobile infantry battalions were also sometimes called air cavalry when they were part of the 1st Cavalry Division.

...what we in Rhodesia did was react to a specific report of presence of insurgents probably without the insurgents knowing.

The air cav sometimes reacted to information from LRRPs. Other times they found the enemy (picked a fight) themselves. If it developed into a big enough fight infantry took over. If infantry units lost contact they could request combat tracker teams to help them regain contact.

I've enjoyed your comments about the RLI and the fire force. I hope you don't mind a curiosity question: How many operational parachute jumps did you make?

[Fuchs]

Other times they found the enemy (picked a fight) themselves.

I'm in the mood to offer an anecdote:

According to a report I read years ago, some pilot with hunting experience was capable of hovering very low over paths and count the footprints per meter and their distance. He was then able to report the direction, guess the age, estimate the strength and speed of the group.

Me thinks this was worth to be mentioned in the age of Longbow radars and eight kilometer thermals.

[JMA]

I'm in the mood to offer an anecdote:

According to a report I read years ago, some pilot with hunting experience was capable of hovering very low over paths and count the footprints per meter and their distance. He was then able to report the direction, guess the age, estimate the strength and speed of the group.

Me thinks this was worth to be mentioned in the age of Longbow radars and eight kilometer thermals.

You want to work with indigenous people who have lived in the bush all their lives to see tracking skill at its best. I often wonder how much use of tracking is made of in wars these days and who does it.

Just a point on this you do realise that the downdraft of the the rotors would obliterate any tracks or sign on the ground?

There was a problem we faced in Rhodesia. First use was made of indigenous trackers from the Game Department who did an outstanding job. With time it became apparent that spoor seemed to get lost just when it seemed contact was imminent. Obviously the Game Department trackers did not want to die in the war. The Rhodesians over reacted and started training (black and white) soldiers as trackers with some success but never to reach the skills level of the real born and bread trackers. The solution in my opinion would have been IMHO to integrate the military and Game Department trackers on the basis that the game department guys did the real tracking with the soldiers out on the flanks until they assessed that the quarry was very close then the Game Department trackers would pull back and the soldiers would take over fully together with the follow up troops. As the Selous Scouts were getting a bounty for kills we made on their call outs they could have offered the same to these trackers.

I always remember from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when they couldn't shake off the posse and kept asking each other "Who are those guys?". That's the way it should be. Run them down.

[Fuchs]

Just a point on this you do realise that the downdraft of the the rotors would obliterate any tracks or sign on the ground?

It depends. he had a small helicopter and some people have amazing eyesight.

My father is still able to read highway signs at a distance where I barely notice them. Sadly, i got the eyes from my mother; nothing special except that many optical tricks (some 3D tricks and such tricks as exploited by certain weapon sights) do not work on me.
My father could easily have read footsteps in mud while hovering in a Bell 47 at 50m.

[JMA]

Understood, I didn't mean to suggest that the air cav operated exactly like the fire force. I'm sure the tactical situations and operational requirments faced by each unit were unique to time and place.

It just stuck me that there was a similarity in that both deployed (and redeployed) rapidly, often making multiple combat assaults the same day.

Understood again. I also tried to point out that in the U.S. sense the air cavalry squadrons were unique from the airmobile infantry battalions, even though the airmobile infantry battalions were also sometimes called air cavalry when they were part of the 1st Cavalry Division.

The air cav sometimes reacted to information from LRRPs. Other times they found the enemy (picked a fight) themselves. If it developed into a big enough fight infantry took over. If infantry units lost contact they could request combat tracker teams to help them regain contact.

I've enjoyed your comments about the RLI and the fire force. I hope you don't mind a curiosity question: How many operational parachute jumps did you make?

No offence meant. Just wanted to make sure that we were all aware of the difference. I would also say that the fire force worked on irregular troops of about up to 30 odd. Where we knew they were in prepared positions we took a more convention approach.

Don't have my Rhodesian log book anymore. It was 8 or 9 so lets say 8. Add to that one into Angola when with the South African paras. We had a Corporal (Des Archer) who did a staggering 73 Op jumps (a world record I believe). Also had a youngster in my troop who had only ever flown in a Dak. By the end of his service had taken off 30 odd times but never landed in an aircraft.

Archer and some guys from 1 Commando did 3 Op jumps in one day. We had a problem with parachutes. We had to recover them and send them back for repacking in Salisbury. If we had chutes that had be fitted a few times but not used we used to jump them anyway as a safety precaution using guys who hadn't jumped for a while.