Whoops, it was on 25 June 1950, not 25 July of that year, when the Korean War began. Oh well, when I was in the artillery they taught us to run out of the FDC shouting, "Stop those rounds" when we realized we'd made a mistake.
Whoops, it was on 25 June 1950, not 25 July of that year, when the Korean War began. Oh well, when I was in the artillery they taught us to run out of the FDC shouting, "Stop those rounds" when we realized we'd made a mistake.
...by fire and maneuver. That way is through ensuring you put him on the horns of a dilemma. Call it using combined arms to "fix" him, but the result is the same. You force him to make a choice. Often it is a choice between staying and dying under the effects of HE (40mm, 60mm, 120mm, JDAM, etc.), or fleeing and facing the effects of effective and accurate direct fires.
Take away one ingredient of that recipe, and you cannot maneuver effectively, in the Afghanistan context. There is too much deadspace and terrain (to include the human terrain) that allows the enemy to move along after contact is broken.
Now, this business of close combat also involves the task of deciding if you believe it is important enough to send a troop through the door of a dark, musty mud hut, when you can exercise tactical patience, sit back, and call those knuckleheads out to you because you have them surrounded.
I've used the point made by a former Ranger on another board here before. There is nothing that important, besides an American captive, that justifies assaulting a hut/building over here. Nothing at all.
Intersting topic having done a lot of research on Fairbairn, Sykes, Biddle and others. Thank you.
I watched a documentary on Second World War wartime cameramen, and from memory, the only film taken by US Cameramen of an enemy soldier in combat was at Tarawa. The Japnese soldier darted past the an open doorway and turned his face towards the cameraman by instinct perhaps. I did some training with the police for it when in the military, but have never done real life CQB. Police forces understandably see more of it than the military, even perhaps including Afghanistan, as that is the nature of the job.
I have seen a clip that I think you are talking about. On Tarawa...but it was a small group for two-three Japanese soldiers dashing past a blockhouse, and fired upon by a group of Marines who appeared to miss.
In May 2004, approximately 20 British troops in Basra were ambushed and forced out of their vehicles by about 100 Shiite militia fighters. When ammunition ran low, the British troops fixed bayonets and charged the enemy. About 20 militiamen were killed in the assault without any British deaths.
https://www.us.army.mil/suite/collab...?doid=14903470
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The attack was sudden and unexpected. Patrolling a notoriously dangerous area of Afghanistan, Bradley Malone and his fellow Royal Marines were caught in a fierce ambush by insurgents.
But, in a remarkable show of calm under extreme pressure, Corporal Malone led his unit in a devastating counter-attack that pitched his men into a close- combat assault.
He ordered his men to fix bayonets, and they charged their attackers in a determined, courageous onslaught that brought them into eye-to-eye contact with the Taleban. In the face of such heroism, the enemy broke and fled for their lives.
http://www.hmforces.co.uk/news/artic...-bravery-award
October 2008 : Lieutenant James 'Jim' Adamson, 24, then a platoon commander, led a bayonet charge against enemy forces that saved the lives of fellow troops while on tour in Afghanistan.
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/122673-s...nst-the-enemy/
Jus' sayin'.
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail
http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg
There are a number of reasons to doubt the veracity of this story. At best it simply did not happen.- based on the account presented in the British Army Review and others who were there.
Since 2005, one weapons in four in a UK Rifle platoon fireteam can have a bayonet attached to it, so giving the order "fix bayonets" just means the one man with the bayonet does something.
Based on a few years of research, I have found very few truthful accounts of men actually using bayonets in combat.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I don't see it as being whether you carry bayonets or actually fix them and use them in battle. It is the final assault on the enemy position that requires training to cater for the physical eventualities and also and equally important the psychological preparation.
What was the scale of issue of the SA80 bayonet in the British Army fireteam in the first half of 2004? That's when the incident happened.
What's your criteria to determine if it's BS or not? My Battalion (infantry) didn't even issue/bring bayonets to Iraq and at this point in my life, I really don't have a dog in this fight.
However, I've read enough smatterings of casual accounts (see more below)
to suggest that this is a worthy topic of formal research - at what range has combat occurred in Iraq & Afghanistan? I'd hazard that you'd find far more "room-range" incidents from Ramadi and Fallujah than the hills of Afghanistan, but I do remember reading about near face-to-face incidents in A-stan.
http://www.guvwurld.org/cgi-bin/live...-%208-3-04.txt"We had moved into an area that had three times the fighting force that we did," said Staff Sgt. Brian Ivers of Colorado Springs, Colo. "We threw everything we had at them."
Still nursing bruised ribs from the al Gharraf battle, Ivers, 38, fell from a balcony and fractured his elbow. The image he remembers most from the Baghdad firefight is of a gunner shouting that he had fed his last belt of ammunition into his machine gun.
"I got a lump in my throat when I saw the Marines fixing their bayonets," he said of the moments before the third platoon caught up with his unit. "Rounds were skipping off in front of them and landing all over the place. They were out of ammunition but they weren't going anywhere."
http://forums.military.com/eve/forum.../7270091741001I beleive it was 3/2 that fixed bayonets in An Nasariya. There was a small open field with some palm groves and big *** tall grass near the bank of the river and they were clearing the field, groves and grass. Since it was very close quarters (groves and grass) they fixed bayonets. I may be corrected on who it was..since I was on the move with 2nd LAR and only saw Marines doing it from the road (Mar 23, 03). But I knew 3/2 was there and I am assuming right now it was them.
Last edited by AdamG; 07-23-2010 at 02:30 PM.
A scrimmage in a Border Station
A canter down some dark defile
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail
http://i.imgur.com/IPT1uLH.jpg
This debate has been going on for years. Histories of the American Civil War mention many charges with bayonets, but paradoically casualty records of the U.S. Army Medical Department for that war list few casualties from edged weapons. The truth may be somewhere in between, with many assualts with the weapon but few guys hurt by it. I think the answer is that the main power of the bayonet is psychologcal--guys run away when faced with cold steel. I personally don't think the bayonet has much use in modern warfare, unless it's an all-purpose knife and bayonet, like the one for the old M1 Carbine.
Agree mostly. However, I believe it is better/safer/more advantageous to push him over his emotional tipping point and get him to withdraw/flee where he can become food for gunships and troops deployed in static cut-off positions. Having to winkle out enemy remnants who have decided to fight to the death can become hugely stressful and downright dangerous.
We are back to that old concept (from where I come from) where you find them, encircle them, flush them, pursue them and then kill them.
Yes, the Afghanistan context. You got to do what you have to to prevent them from making a clean break. How you do it there depends on a number of factors.Take away one ingredient of that recipe, and you cannot maneuver effectively, in the Afghanistan context. There is too much deadspace and terrain (to include the human terrain) that allows the enemy to move along after contact is broken.
I suppose this is an example of how warfare in Afghanistan is of a limited nature?Now, this business of close combat also involves the task of deciding if you believe it is important enough to send a troop through the door of a dark, musty mud hut, when you can exercise tactical patience, sit back, and call those knuckleheads out to you because you have them surrounded.
I've used the point made by a former Ranger on another board here before. There is nothing that important, besides an American captive, that justifies assaulting a hut/building over here. Nothing at all.
You must help me here Jon. Why is it so dangerous for a troop to follow the explosion of a bunker bomb through a door of a "musty old hut"? I would suggest that the biggest risk in so doing is that the building may collapse on him.
(Note: As I think I have stated somewhere here before why don't you fly in a flamethrower team when faced with this situation? Do you still have them somewhere? Man we could have done with those things in the cave situations we faced.)
Even if you do one or two rooms as an example eventually some troop is going to have to go into each room to ensure that everyone who was in there has in fact surrendered, yes?
Further we note that the Taliban are pretty smart at adapting their tactics to exploit the ROE and other restrictions ISAF self impose. They want to keep civvies around them knowing that ISAF don't want to add to the civvie body count. They send kids to do things knowing that they either won't be shot or will have the critical advantage when facing ISAF forces (who correctly) would not knowingly kill a child. Now can we add hiding out in huts knowing that troops will not ordinarily go in after them?
Where everyone comes from, or should - FIND, FIX, STRIKE, EXPLOIT. - Core Functions. Explicitly written down by Ferdinand Foch in about 1911, as a guide to campaign planning, but actually applicable at all levels.
IMO, core functions are the most under used and misunderstood conceptual tool for tactics ever to exist.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
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