What is presence patrolling?

[Bill Moore]

Posted by RTK

We called "presence patrols" more appropriately "trolling for RPGs." It seemed more akin to chumming when you're fishing for sharks.

As stated earlier in this thread, task and purpose are the keys and halmarks to a well planned and, consequently, well executed patrol. Providing area security tied to a specific piece of infrastructure seemed to foot the bill much better. And the boys don't feel like they're out there just to pad a briefing stat at the next BUB.

RTK, I'm a major fan of task and purpose, but hopefully we're flexible enough to allow for more than one task and purpose for each patrol? Additionally, there some things that should become SOP on a patrol in a COIN situation that you wouldn't do in conventional warfare, for example slapout mentioned the ASCOPE assessment. PIR/IR for COIN is obviously different than PIR/IR for a conventional fight.

Perhaps neither you or MikeF are implying that the only thing our patrols can do are missions with one specific task/purpose, but it can be interpreted this way. Somethings are best debated in a TOC, where each side can make their points clear discussing it over a map, and having a common understanding of the threat. The risk with posts is that we can all be right [and I am right :-)] in the context of the scenario each of is envisioning, but we could be envisioning four or five separate scenarios, so we end up talking past one another.

With that in mind, I think our military is still overly risk adverse (a by product of the Khobar Towers Investigation, which IMO was unprofessionally done, and resulted in great harm to the force overall). Mission success was still touted as achieving your objective (task/purpose), but the reality was that it was understood it was take no casualties (training or in conflict). Operations were more focused on force protection than accomplishing the objective, which is what I interpret when I read the posts that are opposed to presence patrols. There is a balance, and I argue that we still lean too much towards force protection. Breaking that mind set in 2007 was what some of us believe was paramount (not the only thing) in breaking the insurgency's back (not defeating it).

If you're on a presence patrol you can view getting shot at as failure or success, but if you're looking for the enemy then a strong argument can made you're successful (especially if you can dominate teh fight and defeat the threat). Over time you'll deny freedom of movement to the enemy in that area (doesn't mean he won't occassionally still get a shot in at you). That is why this type of warfare has been labeled the war of the flea, iti is simply extremely frustrating.

I'll assume that your post didn't imply we hole up and only depart the base when we had a "pinpoint' task". The Brits actually have some of the presence patrolling TTPs I have discussed in previous posts in their COIN manuals (not available online). You can also call it saturation patrolling. Rather than an area recon I would call it an enemy denial patrol, but for those of you wedded to the book, call it what you like, as long as it achieves the same purpose.

Do you plan every patrol? Yes, at you better, is it conventional in nature? No.