Combat Outpost Penetrated in Afghanistan, 9 dead

[Cole]

Also note that you're having them walk with all their supplies to set up a 'COP.' That's not a patrol, that's an approach march to establish a static position.

Was implying that for a long patrol, you would need to carry a lot of water, ammunition, and food regardless of whether setting up a COP.

Also note that though armor was available it was worn by virtually no one -- can't do it in jungle heat and if we do another jungle war, all those Armor lovers are going to have either cases of heat stroke or personal conniption fit when some sensible General says 'dump the armor' (which of course means we could drop it in Afghanistan -- but we won't...).

Today's armor is much lighter. Technology could evolve to make armor even more so and include cooling fluid tubes adjacent to Soldier skin using weight saved with lighter armor. Hard? Yes. But if the effort is not made, Soldiers continue to be jeopardized needlessly. To quote a pretty smart General, hard is not impossible.

No patrol should ever be 'random.' Its route should be carefully selected to be purposeful but not predictable and it should appear random only to the untrained observer. Other units should pursue different routes and timings and no one should stay anywhere more than 12 hours. All should occasionally and seemingly carelessly double back to village and populated areas they just left. They should look like they know what they're doing -- the opposition will always head for the low hanging Breadfruits, the poorly trained and the sluffers, the lazy -- who are always with us...

Good point, and perhaps it has been covered. But it just seems to me that if you are protecting the population, your patrols and resupply routes must either avoid the population (and risk becoming irrelevant) and use honesty traces to avoid the same routes/chokepoints so the enemy does not plant IEDs there, or concentrate patrols and surveillance nearly continuously on the same routes and streets used by the population so the enemy has no time to place IEDs without risking being observed. Is that even possible without a nearby COP from which to originate the patrols and use aerostats, sensor towers, and small UAS and unmanned ground sensors/vehicles?

IIRC, one LTC did it in one Iraq city sending patrols out continuously, but believe they originated from COPs. The Marines seemed to have figured something out in Sangin, but suffered a lot of IED casualties initially before patrolling flushed out the problem. They are also using COPs.

Static outposts have a poor record in COIN efforts while well planned and conducted long patrols are proven very effective in counterguerrilla work. Overall casualty figures from the two approaches differ but little. Extensive patrols worked in WW II, in Korea and in Viet Nam. Elements of the 1/82 BCT employed them also successfully -- as 82 Redleg can attest -- in Afghanistan. They cannot be sent out just to say we did it, they have to have a purpose, a thoroughly planned route and resupply process and be willing to forego own DS Arty support. When the bureaucracy got going in Viet Nam in late 1967, one of their first foolish diktats was that no US unit could move out of US Artillery fans. That stopped the long patrols and the war went downhill from then on. Better safe than effective...

It's the American way.

The far higher casualty figures from Viet Nam compared to Afghanistan are due to the very different type of war plus big differences in terrain and vegetation. It can also be attributed to a very different, more numerous, better trained, better armed and more competent enemy -- that last not my opinion but from an acquaintance who was SF for years to include Viet Nam and now works as a Contractor for somebody or other.

Good comment and realize that the North Vietnamese were a tougher foe. But the shorter distance from sea to land bases had to be easier than resupply of Texas-sized land-locked terrain. Most resupply would need to be by air if forces never settled on key terrain protecting key populations. Doesn't that risk revealing friendly positions by either helicopter or airdrop resupply? Guess if done at night with multiple false insertions...
and GPS airdrops...that pesky tech thing again.

BTW, in my earlier text referring to the photo of Wanat's terrain, I should have said the deadspace was north of OP Topside, not south.