A Case Against Battle Drill Six

[120mm]

Neil, thanks for the example. Don't second guess yourself, s*** happens in combat. At least you made a decision.

As Ken said,



We almost learned the hard way that routine becomes deadly. In early 2007, the threat changed inside the target house. The enemy learned not to fight directly. Instead, they would rig the entire house to blow.

For a time, we mastered the art of battle drill six. We lived by the mantra that "slow is smooth and smooth is fast." My teams could flow through a town seamlessly.

During clearance operations in the DRV, I chose an abandoned home to strong point. To date, we had cleared over 400 homes. Given the location and vantage point, it was key terrain. The location seemed ideal. It was all too inviting. Unfortunately, the enemy identified it as well.

After we secured the house, I had a platoon inside establishing our defense and a platoon outside consolidating. Still something felt odd about the house. In the past 48 hours, we had lost 4 paratroopers to a suicide bomber and discovered an EFP production facility.

An alert NCO continued to search discovering a wire hidden under a rug leading to a hidden basement. Inside the basement, the receiver flashed connected to over 1000lbs of explosives. Thankfully, the det cord was flawed. I would have lost at least 15 soldiers.

Another unit was not so lucky and lost 10 soldiers.

Afterwards, we adopted the crawl approach to clearing.

There is no golden egg with TTPs in sustained COIN. BD6 is not a thing of the past. The key is to be erratic, innovative, and decisive. Sometimes you storm the house; sometimes you call TPTs for surrender; sometimes you blow the house up. As long as you are anything but predictable.

We mastered a similar TTP for driving- always change the tempo. Sometimes we bounded; sometimes we sped; sometimes we crawled.

In any case, the enemy was perplexed and the casualty rate decreased.

v/r

Mike

I think I'm going to frame that and keep it. Smart. Very smart.

[Tom Odom]

Gents,

I am lookig at updating Handbook 03-04 the Small Unit Leaders Guide to Urban Operations in the next year.

I have asked on of the OC divisions to take it on. But I would love to get direct input from the field. Vignettes are great, especially if tied to TTPs.

If you have something send me a PM and I will send an email address.

Best

Tom

[VMI_Marine]

Lt Ackerman's article Relearning Stormtroop Tactics talks about isolating strong points and reducing them with supporting assets:

After finding the enemy's position, the infantry would make contact, isolate and suppress the objective, and then either bring up a tank or a D-9 bulldozer to reduce the position.

The key point that I learned last year from the Army is that in a non-kinetic environment, the same idea still applies; only now the supporting assets brought up to "reduce" the strongpoint are an interpreter and/or psyops team.

Mike and Neil, thanks for sharing your experiences.

[Rank amateur]

Lt Ackerman's article Relearning Stormtroop Tactics talks about isolating strong points and reducing them with supporting assets:



The key point that I learned last year from the Army is that in a non-kinetic environment, the same idea still applies; only now the supporting assets brought up to "reduce" the strongpoint are an interpreter and/or psyops team.

In a non kinetic environment, once you isolate - i.e. build a fence around a neighborhood - there is no urgent need to reduce. For example, you can spend a couple months - or even years - negotiating with people until they lay down their weapons.

[Tom Odom]

In a non kinetic environment, once you isolate - i.e. build a fence around a neighborhood - there is no urgent need to reduce. For example, you can spend a couple months - or even years - negotiating with people until they lay down their weapons.

Unless you are the police in Prince Georges County MD

Seriously, the key phrase in this discussion remains METT-T. Everything else is but a guideline to consider.

I can tell you we have seen "stacks" running down streets as units wrongly applied CQB ttps to movement. Very little in my business begins with the phrase "Thou shalt not..."

Tom

[MikeF]

I'm reflecting this weekend...

On the Job with Operation Minotaur

This segment was done 72 hours prior to us discovering the rigged house. As for the reporting, we considered her a "one-night stand" reporter. She shows up, indulges you, and leaves never considering a long-term relationship.

This NPR segment cost me a Senate Armed Forces investigation so I'll put it into the appropriate context...

1. We did not torture anyone...Jamie states the detainees were interviewed out of view. While accurate, it is misportrayed. We handed over the detainees to the MPs.

2. "Let's get Rocky and beat these guys up." Rocky is a 110lbs kurdish iraqi. On patrols, he would scream, "STOP!!!" We'd immediately halt our convoy assuming that he identified an IED or ambush. Instead, he would be concerned with a dog being run over...During an interrogation, Rocky's emotional intelligence disarmed detainees in a way that often provided accurate intelligence.

3. As per my earlier post, we found the rigged house days later.

For additional context, we were penetrating into the denied areas of the Islamic State of Iraq. Moreover, for security reasons, we conducted a major deception operation with the media, Iraqi government, and Iraqi populace. Unfortunately, NPR choose not to leave before understanding the entire operation.

What she failed to document was that we bypassed over 100 deep-buried IEDs and secured an area devestated with sectarian violence, genocide, and terrorist training camps pushing fighters to baqubah, baghdad, and possibly Saudi Arabia.

I suppose those are minor sound bites within the grand scheme of things.

After she left, I felt bad for the curfew that I enforced on the populace. I lifted it to allow them to grab food, water, and electricity....Hours later, four of my soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber.

I never made that mistake again. I still had to write the letters to the families of my fallen.

v/r

Mike

[carl]

If I had listened to that broadcast when it was originally aired, I would have thought it was a measured report of the situation as it was. The foreign accent and sober delivery would have had me fooled. She did not do your soldiers justice.

You mentioned in the broadcast, perceptions of impunity. That is also a problem for law enforcement here in the States as Slap can probably attest.
Hard, bad men (or often boys, juvys get away with a lot) get back into the town with vastly increased confidence and their neighbors wonder if the cops can really do anything. I read this problem was particularly bad in New Orleans.

If it is of any interest, in the state I was in, going into houses wasn't done much. The suspects were gassed out or talked out. This even extended to cell extractions at the state pen. We practiced cell extractions in training, mostly because it was fun. We even did one once at a county jail. But in the big prisons, they just pumped in the gas until the prisoner agreed to come out. Not very dramatic but safer for all.

[jcustis]

I need this article again, but my AKO is acting squirrely and I doubt I'll get to rectifying the problem easily. Could someone pinch a copy for me? I need to get this and some good commentary from another site out to the coy cmdrs.