A Case Against Battle Drill Six

[slapout9]

Everybody knows what SWAT stands for don't they? Sit-Wait-And-Talk

[Stan]

Hey Slapout,
My brother-in-law is a DC bomb squad dog handler, going on 17 years.
SWAT teams, in his opinion, perform swift and heartless maneuvers with little compassion. Do we need these folks ? You bet !

[slapout9]

Stan, Yep some people will always cross the line. That is when put out the STOP sign. I actually saw this put on a ballistic shield. The higher powers made him take it off of course but it looked cool for awhile.

[Steve Blair]

Sure, we will always need SWAT-style units, and in some cases their tactics may be useful for military ops. But, as seems the case in far too many things, the powers that be want a one-size-fits-all theory for things. "If this works for LAPD SWAT/Delta snatch teams/Chuck Norris, it MUST work for the line grunts as well." You need to retain those capabilities for situations where they are appropriate, but they will not always work.

[Stan]

Hello Steve,
I not only agree, but think we have somehow forgotten our grunts. We have a good laugh using them as the brunt of a joke (they were afterall in the early 70's those with the lowest GT scores).

Often however, we worry a tad too much. That was the case with Operation Support Hope. The General posted a two-man gate guard with a SAW out front, but no ammo ?

Yes, Africans are slow to learn, but it doesn't take much to figure out the weapon is empty and the grunt holding it like a sack of potatoes didn't help much either.

Somewhere between SWAT man Chuck and an empty weapon with common sense.

Regards, Stan

[Steve Blair]

Stan, I agree completely. In the whole rush for fancy stuff the ol' Snuffie has been forgotten. And that is a major problem.

[Tom Odom]

I have written much on this subject, some of which has been discussed here.

Nothing happens until Joe puts his boot on the ground and that gets lost in the swirl of techie thinking whether you are talking close combat or intelligence operators out there looking.

I really liked Billl Meara's book. My review of it makes that clear. One thing that jumped off the pages at me was his practice of getting out and looking. Stan and I made that a practice and it served us and the greater intel community well. It can be a very lonely feeling...then again the first man through the door, stacked or not, is about as alone as one can get.

Best

Tom

[Maximus]

I have a bunch of notes from the AAR with the Lt. I'll post shortly. I can also send Ackerman's article over e-mail. Just let me know.

[slapout9]

Tom, in the old days the first man did not go through the door! he would lie on the ground OUTSIDE! the door and look first. If he fired nobody else went through the door until he yelled go, if he didn't fire, he yelled go and the rest of the team would enter and clear their sector. Not perfect but better than going through blind and low tech and cheap to.

[Stan]

Good evening Folks !
Slapout, God I love the way you pen this Sierra
You could've been a grunt ! Errr, naw forget that one

I love the movies, cops and EOD. One low, the other high and guns a blazen.
Later, is it the white wire, or the blue one ? WHO CARES ?

We alway just blow the flippin thing with a water canon and go home.

Tom,
check out "Kaur's" link RE culture for the Army. Sierrra ! I think someone actually listened to you in the end. Don't let that go to your (bald) head

Regards, Stan

[slapout9]

Stan, what do you mean could have been???? My primary was 11B4P, secondary was 11C4P. I got more time in a T-10 than YO mama Got in A T-Shirt

[Stan]

Hey Bubba,
I towed you buds out with my M88 (GED, not the BS diesels).

Darn, I knew you were a gun bunny !

I hung out with 4P1 two clicks south of North Korea (DMZ). Then, the only live fire battery in the US Army (well, can't say that any more). Gotta love an M110. Bad news on the other side of the fence (line).

Slapout, yea, I already knew that

[Tom Odom]

Tom, in the old days the first man did not go through the door! he would lie on the ground OUTSIDE! the door and look first. If he fired nobody else went through the door until he yelled go, if he didn't fire, he yelled go and the rest of the team would enter and clear their sector. Not perfect but better than going through blind and low tech and cheap to.

Agreed if it's safe to be out on the street in the first place. But everything is METT-T dependent; we worked this issue hard in 2003-2004. You can see the result as CALL Newsletter 03-4.

The debate over situations is on the mark. And one not subject to a checklist approach. Precision UO is just such a case; precise is a relative term. Aachen WWII and Fallujah 2 are at one end of the spectrum; the other is as discussed here the "call out" to the locals. Each has their place depending on situation.

Best
Tom

[RTK]

Agreed if it's safe to be out on the street in the first place. But everything is METT-T dependent; we worked this issue hard in 2003-2004. You can see the result as CALL Newsletter 03-4.

The debate over situations is on the mark. And one not subject to a checklist approach. Precision UO is just such a case; precise is a relative term. Aachen WWII and Fallujah 2 are at one end of the spectrum; the other is as discussed here the "call out" to the locals. Each has their place depending on situation.

Best
Tom

Tom, glad you brought this up. Tom's too modest, but this product was his brainchild. Far and away it's the best and most operationally relevant resourse I've come across regarding this subject. And it works.

Going through the door works, but if you can take the corner of the building off with a Bradley, tank, or truck, you established a breach in a direction the occupants just aren't oriented in. After that, there must be a logical order of operations. This Newsletter is just that.

Regardless of the method, the old saying "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" always applies. This only solidifies through rehearsals and good training.

[slapout9]

Here is a nice picture of how most modern SWAT teams go through the day today. If you don't want to shoot them you just run into them with the shield, sounds crazy but it is a very effect hostage or capture technique.
http://www.tacticalcops.com/boston-p...entry-team.asp

I have seen the truck routine done with an Wells Fargo Armored truck. It is also a great ruse to use, people think here comes the money
I have seen grappling hooks and steel cables used for people that have burglar bars on their doors and windows.

[Ender]

This is a very interesting subject that often comes down to two factors, the current ROE's and your (in)ability to precisely pinpoint an enemy position. There are many times when you "know" the enemy is in a particular place but are unable to provide the evidence to higher that would warrant a JDAM or AC-130 response...OR can not justify the use of higher order munitions because said enemy is (intentionally) lodged inside a mosque, or near a piece of "critical infrastructure," or embedded within the civilian populace. It is in times like these (and these days they seem to outnumber any other kind) that all of the CQB pays off.

In the scope of small wars and unconventional conflict we tend to gravitate towards surgery as opposed to wholesale destruction. This preference lends itself to the close fight. There is a reason why we are NOT fighting standing armies, with uniforms and formal, extended supply lines. There is a reason why conflict has largely evolved from the fields and plains to the rooftops and apartments. The reason is that they really are "safer" (nowhere is safe) not because we can't get to them, but because we WON'T get to them or at the very least, are far more HESITANT to get to them.

I dont think anyone here is saying we should have less focus on CQB but rather remember that there are other options out there, and to get entrenched with one method is going to be fatal, is that right? The message I would want to take away from this is that if circumstance and situation warrant, stop take a breath, assess, and then go ahead and call air or arty or the neighborhood Abrams and don't just rush into the stack because that is what you have been training on for the last X number of years. Training and muscle memory tend to have us dialed in on the last thing we worked with or on and it is critical to stay mentally flexible so that when the tactical situation arises you are not leading or being led by lemmings.

As an aside and in defense of the stack. In my experiences there were very few times where we would have been able to send one person to look inside a doorway, room etc... because of a courtyard system or the construction of the building or door itself. I like the idea though and will certainly take that tactic and put it into my mental Rolodex! We were decidedly not allowed to drive our vehicles through ANYTHING, (why trash our trucks?) except in the very rare occasions when ROE's were loosened, but even THEN that kind of liberty was time and space dependent. As I said above the majority of the times we "knew" someone was somewhere, but couldn't provide the pictures, birth certificates and fingerprints of the person there to appease the popular press should the attack go wrong. It is the fear of the fourth estate that is the catalyst for highly trained soldiers and Marines to line themselves up and thow themselves into a potential meat grinder. We may not have cracked the code (yet! )and MOUT/CQB may still be one of the more dangerous components of modern combat but in spite of all of this, we are getting better and learning new ways to integrate technology with the commanders need to know what is in the building next door, without having to send in CSI afterwards.

[jcustis]

I dont think anyone here is saying we should have less focus on CQB but rather remember that there are other options out there, and to get entrenched with one method is going to be fatal, is that right? The message I would want to take away from this is that if circumstance and situation warrant, stop take a breath, assess, and then go ahead and call air or arty or the neighborhood Abrams and don't just rush into the stack because that is what you have been training on for the last X number of years. Training and muscle memory tend to have us dialed in on the last thing we worked with or on and it is critical to stay mentally flexible so that when the tactical situation arises you are not leading or being led by lemmings.

You're dead on the money.

[slapout9]

Not the best picture but, here is what a lot teams are using. The battering ram is attached to the vehicle and is used to punch a mouse hole in the building and allows the team to enter from an unexpected direction. It will not tear up the vehicle either. This is a picture of an older model MP type vehicle converted to LE colors. Notice the smiley face

http://www.swatguide.com/photos/9705STMIE.gif

[Ender]

Yes that looks as though it would certainly do the job! I love the face, I mean come on, a little special delivery from your local APC is sure to make anyone smile.

[VMI_Marine]

Here is an older article that addresses the problem as well. This one is from the JRTC perspective. I love the quote at the beginning, which is from the fighting in Aachen in Sept 1944:

"(Streetfighting) is a bad misnomer, because the last place you see any sane man is in a street where every yard is usually covered by a well-sited machine gun. It should be called house-to-house fighting, which it literally is."

--Denis Johnston, BBC Correspondent, On the Front Lines, John Ellis, pg 90

STREETFIGHTING: The Rifle Platoon in MOUT