Rhodesian COIN (consolidated thread, inc original RLI)

[davidbfpo]

Elsewhere others have commented on the Woodward book, partly on the oh-so secret programme: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=6005

On another website (http://www.schneier.com/blog/ ) the Woodward exposure has little credibility and some accuse himn of seeking publicity for his book.

IR alludes to the Selous Scouts; from my reading there was little technical involvement, rather a lot of human skill in persauding (being polite) newly captured nationalist fighters to change sides.

davidbfpo

[slapout9]

Found this at Danger Room. http://blog.wired.com/defense/files/...Continuous.pdf scary stuff

[Ron Humphrey]

Found this at Danger Room. http://blog.wired.com/defense/files/...Continuous.pdf scary stuff

The question has really never been could it be done so much as it, is, will, and should be just on whom and how it is used. Protocol for this needs to be VERY implicit in its use otherwise it will simply turn into one more tool which can be used by those who may not hold themselves to (shall we say (righteous) implementation).

Anything developed to be used with the best intentions also carry's the with it the possibility of mis-application for ulterior motives

[Rhodesian]

Sirs

The following link will be of interest to those of us whose days of running over mountains has somewhat been superceded by the struggle to get out of the arm chair for the next beer. It gives insight into the methods and founding ideas into "finding" a terrorist, before the RLI or others went in by chopper and killed him. There is a suggestion that some of the Selous Scout concept came from Vietnam, perhaps those of you know more on this would like to comment as this was news to me, not being American or particularly familiar with that war? I can say that the author of this particular article is well respected within my "circle of flatulence."

Cheers
I.R.

http://choppertech.blogspot.com/2009...us-scouts.html

[davidbfpo]

This year the British-Zimbabwe Society (BZS) are devoting their annual research day, 20th June 2009, in Oxford, to looking at the issues via Rhodesia / Zimbabwe. Follow the link for details: http://www.britain-zimbabwe.org.uk/RDprog09.htm

Non-BZS members are welcome and these research days can be good.

davidbfpo

[IntelTrooper]

I just saw this on Amazon today and thought some here may be interested (it won't be released until August but can be pre-ordered now):

Counter-strike from the Sky: The Rhodesian All-arms Fireforce in the War in the Bush, 1974-1980

Fireforce as a military concept dates from 1974 when the Rhodesian Air Force (RhAF) acquired the French MG151 20mm cannon from the Portuguese. Coupled with this, the traditional counter-insurgency tactics (against Mugabe's ZANLA and Nkomo's ZIPRA) of follow-ups, tracking and ambushing simply weren't producing satisfactory results. Visionary RhAF and Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) officers thus expanded on the idea of a 'vertical envelopment' of the enemy (first practised by SAS paratroopers in Mozambique in 1973), with the 20mm cannon being the principle weapon of attack, mounted in an Alouette III K-Car ('Killer car'), flown by the air force commander, with the army commander on board directing his ground troops deployed from G-Cars (Alouette III troop-carrying gunships and latterly Bell 'Hueys' in 1979) and parachuted from DC-3 Dakotas. In support would be a propeller-driven ground-attack aircraft armed with front guns, pods of napalm, white phosphorus rockets and a variety of Rhodesian-designed bombs; on call would be Canberra bombers, Hawker Hunter and Vampire jets.

[jcustis]

Hmmm. I would have never guessed Amazon would pick that up. I've had a copy for a couple months now. Cost me a heftier penny though.

[IntelTrooper]

Hmmm. I would have never guessed Amazon would pick that up. I've had a copy for a couple months now. Cost me a heftier penny though.

Was it worth it? Or worth the future price?

[jcustis]

That 34% off price is probably as cheap as it will ever be found. It has lots of new pics and narratives i haven't seen before, so it was definitely worth it. Then again I'm a RLI junky of the highest order.

[IntelTrooper]

That 34% off price is probably as cheap as it will ever be found. It has lots of new pics and narratives i haven't seen before, so it was definitely worth it. Then again I'm a RLI junky of the highest order.

Excellent, thanks for the review!

[slapout9]

That 34% off price is probably as cheap as it will ever be found. It has lots of new pics and narratives i haven't seen before, so it was definitely worth it. Then again I'm a RLI junky of the highest order.

JC,I always knew you were Airborne at heart

[zealot66]

Moderators note - copied here from another thread for continuity

Im still here. You all have alot more experience in debating this issue that I do. My question came as a result of studying wars in southern africa and the measures they took to overcome the landmine issue. I think that terrain, strategy and even a landmine vs an IED demand differences in employment of troops. It is just a sick feeling to watch our casualties from IED's knowing that they werent even the result of a contact just some kid with a remote control. Keep going. I look at this board everyday and consider it an education.

I find the above posts about landing patrols away from the target and walking to a target very interesting and in though the terrain in afghanistan might prohibit some of this, The issue still remains are we using the choppers to their fullest and are there enough ?

[davidbfpo]

Moderators note - copied here from another thread for continuity

Zealot66,

I know a few here will interested in the end product of:

My question came as a result of studying wars in southern africa and the measures they took to overcome the landmine issue.

I recall some Rhodesian annoyance - after 1980 - to find that the South Africans (SADF) had developed their anti-mining equipment and had not shared this with them. The SADF deployed their kit in Angola and SWAfrica - where I expect ex-Rhodesians, now in the SADF noticed. IIRC Peter Stiff authored a book on the Rhodesian counter-IED programme.

[jcustis]

Moderators note - copied here from another thread for continuity

The objective area vs. Walk in issue was the exact issueI looked at in a MC Gazette article a ways back that analysed Fire Force. We can technically do it, BUT I don't think we are doctrinally organized to do it.

[Pete]

Moderators note - copied here from another thread for continuity

Wait a minute, Mr. Custis, you wrote that article on the Rhodesian Fire Force concept in Marine Corps Gazette. Was the reluctance to walk to the objective mainly to enhance the speed of execution?

[jcustis]

Moderators note - copied here from another thread for continuity

If by THAT article you mean the one circa 2000, yes, that was mine.

Was the reluctance to walk to the objective mainly to enhance the speed of execution?

With this question, are you asking about the Rhodesians? If you are, I think the actions of the various elements (RLI, RAR, etc.) that provided Fire Forces were founded on the mobility that the helicopters provided first and foremost, but you have to remember the factors someone else already described.

The Rhodesian Sec Forces were very small, considering the land mass they were responsible for. With that in mind, and considering the fact that multiple sightings of terrorist "gangs" could be made in a single day and in a single ops area, the Rhodesians generally could not afford to walk to the objective. It just took too much time. That's not to say that they never walked about...it's just that in order to reset the Fire Force, the techniques employed worked best when they were dropped straight in. Please note that the Selous Scouts and C Sqdrn SAS boys did plenty of long range inserts to gain observation over enemy infiltration routes, encampments, etc.

Of note is the fact that the terrorists would often split up into very small groups (either on purpose or plain lack of discipline) and "bombshell" out for some distance before trying to go to ground. In order to assess the avenues of escape that they might try to use, the command helicopter usually pulled right into an orbit over the target area, so it makes sense that the maneuver sticks that were dropped in followed the same route and went straight to the area. Fire Force was the classic employment of counter-terrorist techniques that we hear argued for by some with regard to Afghanistan. It was conducted in a COIN campaign for sure, but the techniques only solved a single problem set.

I disagree with Wilf that Fire Force was borne out of the lack of helicopters. The use of old CH-47 Dakotas for parachuting sticks in was a result of the lack of aircraft, but the Fire Force was born out of precisely the mobility that the Alouettes and later Bell Hueys (only dispatched for FF work infrequently if I remember correctly) provided.

I also disagree that the concept would have had problems if pitted up against a more determine foe that employed more MANPADS. Although they didn't employ active anti-SAM measures in the way of IR decoys, the flight profiles employed and exhaust manifolds bolted on did work to an effect. It's also important to remember that the FF did not just stumble into a target area based off of some fleeting spot report. An OP was typically in position with a view of the tgt area, and knew the terrorist composition, strength, and armament, and had fed the information via radio retransmission to the ops center responsible for the FF strike.

If the terrs had decided to stand and fight, all the better targets for the 20mm Hispano autocannon and the .303 quad guns. They would have had a success here and there for sure, but I'm not certain it would have been operationally significant unless they brought down more than 10 helicopters. I cannot remember the numbers of aircraft actually shot down, but I think there were more incidents of combat accidents than anything else. And if the SAMs had become an issue, I suspect that the Rhodesians would have simply started attaching snipers to the OP teams so that those threats could be addressed.

We could achieve similar effects for sure with unmanned aerial systems in overwatch of a terrorist encampment, but we just employ Hellfire and JDAM to resolve those matters if the collateral damage factors don't give cause for concern, but I am convinced that there is no better ISR sensor than the Mark I, Mod I eyeball. In the Afghanistan context, we have to remember that the bad guys over there have a background in baiting and setting traps for heliborne forces employed by the Soviets, and the terrain in much of the country supports that sort of defense. I don't have a crystal ball view on what they might do against a force organized and employed like a Fire Force, but that goes back to my earlier point about the doctrinal issue. We simply do not keep the ground force commander aloft anymore, like the FF commanders did, and that prevents us from being able to effectively assess just what is going on relative to the threat's actions.

ETA: I think a great resource for training to this standard would be to start with FF vets, and supplement that with time spent talking shop with police chopper pilots from the large metropolitan depts.

If we were to put heliborne forces into an area to go up against some knuckleheads laying over on their way to say, Kandahar, methinks that we would need lots of them, and about five times the size of Fire Force elements in order to cover the various ratlines involved. There is a certain mobility luxury that the enemy might enjoy in the way of a brace of mopeds and red racing stripe Toyota pickups.

[davidbfpo]

The cited article on Fire Force tactics by Jon Custis, in the USMC Gazette March 2000, is alas behind a pay wall: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/mca-mari...&Submit=Search

I suspect Jon has placed much of the article on SWC already in his posts on Fire Force.

[student2010]

I would like to write a thesis on the Rhodesian Bush War, specifically the use of Pseudo Operations of the selous scouts and the use of blackface as a tool of deception against African guerillas. I had to abandon my hopes of writing a thesis on the toyota war because I couldn't find any primary sources. Does anyone know of an actual selous scout member that participated in the blackface aspect of the war that I could interview? Or any good books or documents? Thanks.

[trippmccullar]

My thesis partners and I wrote a thesis on "Pseudo Operations & Deception in Irregular Conflict" in 2009 for John Arquilla at the Naval Postgraduate School. I'd be glad to send you a copy to review our bibliography for source info. If you like, send your email address via PM to enable an exchange.

[JMA]

My thesis partners and I wrote a thesis on "Pseudo Operations & Deception in Irregular Conflict" in 2009 for John Arquilla at the Naval Postgraduate School. I'd be glad to send you a copy to review our bibliography for source info. If you like, send your email address via PM to enable an exchange.

I have a copy of the McCullar et al thesis and recommend those interested in this subject to request a copy from him to add to their libraries. It an excellent contribution to the subject.