FOB Keating attack repulsed

[AmericanPride]

In my opinion, the focus on what we did wrong (real or perceived, but all in hindsight) seems to distract from what the enemy did right. The "faults", "errors", "blunders", "problems" seem to be disproportionately narrowed to exclude the sophistication of an experienced and dynamic insurgency. It seems to me that the running perception is that the enemy stumbled around until they found a weakness and ran with it rather than developing a deliberate plan to assess and attack the COP with the intention of fulfilling their operational/strategic objectives. I'm not saying mistakes were not made on the ground (real or perceived), but only that the enemy has a his own design which he is pursuing that obviously significantly influences this event.

[jcustis]

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?"

[qp4]

The most recent version of Field Manual 5-103, Survivability, that I've been able to find is from 1985, and I doubt it has anything about Hesco barriers or some of the other prefabricated stuff now in use. It may be one of the manuals that few people read.

There are several published books specifically on building COPs and small FOBs. They fully diagram and layout designs using Hescos (how many Hesco blocks does it take to stop an Opel full of fertilizer?). And yes, no one reads them.

CMF 19 doesn't teach crap on fortification, but we're the mounted guys, so it would figure.

v/r,
qp4

[AmericanPride]

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

Still want to quit?"

I won't make any claims to how widespread it is, but I have experienced on multiple occasions either a complete ignorance of the capacity, resilience, and experience of the Afghan insurgency or an injurious under-estimation of their abilities. This is of course not to be confused with issues of legal or moral legitimacy, but we must recognize the fact that the insurgency has managed to effectively destroy a COP and nearly overran a vehicle patrol base (FM 3-90 defines destroy as "physically [rendering] an enemy force combat-ineffective until it is reconstituted."; and for awareness, defeat is defined as "when an enemy force has temporarily or permanently lost the physical means or the will to fight" and "the defeated force's commander is unwilling or unable to pursue his adopted course of action").

Is there difficulty in the Army/military/American culture in accepting that an enemy is capable of inflicting serious harm on us without our having made a serious or grave mistake that enables them to do so? Is the Afghan insurgency so weak that it's successes can only come from when we make mistakes? Does this affect our capacity to make accurate assessments of the situation and to craft effective COAs?

[Kiwigrunt]

Is there difficulty in the Army/military/American culture in accepting that an enemy is capable of inflicting serious harm on us without our having made a serious or grave mistake that enables them to do so? Is the Afghan insurgency so weak that it's successes can only come from when we make mistakes? Does this affect our capacity to make accurate assessments of the situation and to craft effective COAs?

Good point.
To what extent does this ‘difficulty in our culture’ allow us to only see every incident that leaves casualties on our side as a defeat or disaster, exacerbated of course by our very aversion to risk and casualties. At the tactical level, was COP Keating really that much of a defeat? Sure, 8 KIA is tragic. But the comparative statistics don’t actually look that bad given that the Taliban lost about 150. And as for the loss of the post it depends on how much value we choose to adhere to that particular piece of turf. I realise that this is looking purely at numbers but compare it to other defeats like those caused by IEDs. Look at any IED incident or combination of them where the casualty count is similar and see what damage we were able to inflict in return. (I say ‘we’ in the broadest sense; it doesn’t include yours truly from behind my laptop)

So perhaps we could even take that a step further and reverse our view on this. Given that the enemy tends to have the initiative most of the time anyway, would an increased use of these COPs not be a way to draw them out and meet them head on? And then the ‘true believers’ can do the humping with heavy weights. And when they operate in larger groups like this they should in a sense be easier to deal with as the battle becomes more ‘conventional’.
With other words, give them bait and reason to group up and take the battle to us.

Just some simplistic thoughts…

[Pete]

CMF 19 doesn't teach crap on fortification, but we're the mounted guys, so it would figure.

The construction of field fortifications might well be one of those subjects that goes against the grain of the American way of warfare, with our preference for offensive operations to achieve decisive results--we prefer the style of J.E.B. Stuart riding around the Union army and Patton chasing the Wehrmacht across France rather than digging in and waiting for the enemy to come to us. That having been said, we've fortified a lot of places in Korea, Vietnam, and during the current wars. Some of the photographs of them look like the proverbial house that Jack built, especially some of the ridgetop forts built when the Korean War was in its final static phase. If we have to build fortifications from time to time we may as well do it right, and a few hours of instruction in the Basic and Career courses might help to prevent some of the more egregious mistakes from being made.

[PhilR]

We were very good in Vietnam at rapidly constructing defendable firebases. The knowledge and background is there. With all the time we've spent (and are planning to spend) in Afghanistan, I'd hope we'd be breaking out those lessons from the past. There are basics of fields of fire, etc. This is not unique to Afghanistan. the history of small wars is one of small outposts or columns being overwhelmed by an irregular force who has the temporary advantage of surprise and mass. If you think in terms of raid, which was what this was, the Taliban acheived a period of relative superiority within which ti achieve its objectives, then withdrew as that window collapsed, as it naturally does (I'd recommend McRaven's SpecOps as a great read on the theory of raids--he's also the current commander of JSOC).
In terms of the tactical effect, from what I understand, one of the shortcomings was how long it took for reinforcements or external fire support to arrive. I'd be curious on the thinking that went into that planning. We can look at the situation in one of two ways: either the COP is to be rescued with reinforcements and fires directed at saving the perimeter itself, or the enemy massing is looked on as an opportunity, and we maneuver our reaction force and fires to cut him off from his planned withdrawal.
The latter option requires more flexibility in response, but is also has the opportunity to also turn the tables on the information/perception loss we suffered. As it was, even with the casualty mismatch, it appears the enemy not only had the initiative in engaging, but in disengaging as well.
s/f
Phil Ridderhof USMC

[jcustis]

Good point.
To what extent does this ‘difficulty in our culture’ allow us to only see every incident that leaves casualties on our side as a defeat or disaster, exacerbated of course by our very aversion to risk and casualties. At the tactical level, was COP Keating really that much of a defeat? Sure, 8 KIA is tragic. But the comparative statistics don’t actually look that bad given that the Taliban lost about 150. And as for the loss of the post it depends on how much value we choose to adhere to that particular piece of turf. I realise that this is looking purely at numbers but compare it to other defeats like those caused by IEDs. Look at any IED incident or combination of them where the casualty count is similar and see what damage we were able to inflict in return. (I say ‘we’ in the broadest sense; it doesn’t include yours truly from behind my laptop)

So perhaps we could even take that a step further and reverse our view on this. Given that the enemy tends to have the initiative most of the time anyway, would an increased use of these COPs not be a way to draw them out and meet them head on? And then the ‘true believers’ can do the humping with heavy weights. And when they operate in larger groups like this they should in a sense be easier to deal with as the battle becomes more ‘conventional’.
With other words, give them bait and reason to group up and take the battle to us.

Just some simplistic thoughts…

Might work...for a short while and through a few successes, but then what? I don't think the Taliban are going to continue to push a protracted strategy of trying to isolate a COP and destroy it at the risk of losing several fighters. They'd rather choke off our lines of communication and just IED the re-supply convoys.

This also sounds like the strategy employed with regard to defending Khe Sanh:

"As far as Westmoreland was concerned, however, all he needed to know was that PAVN had massed large numbers of troops for a set-piece battle. Making the prospect even more enticing was that the Combat Base was in an unpopulated area where American firepower could be fully brought to bear without having to worry about civilian casualties. The opportunity to engage and destroy a formerly elusive enemy that was moving toward a fixed position promised a victory of unprecedented proportions."

I'm not so sure that a mobile and fluid enemy such as the Taliban is too concerned with waging a war of COPs.

[Ken White]

This also sounds like the strategy employed with regard to defending Khe Sanh...

Khe Sanh and the A Shau were a couple of many attempts to coax the VC and / or the NVA -- the two were not synonymous nor always cooperating effectively -- into big battles. Never really worked. Fighting a European war in SEA.

I'm not so sure that a mobile and fluid enemy such as the Taliban is too concerned with waging a war of COPs.

That's the real 'yep' from me. They hit a target of opportunity and will when they can. Too much ado about a very small fight that didn't come off nearly as bad as too many seem to think. It's war, doo doo occurs and the bad guys will continue to do that, they'll accrue more minor successes. Likely also will accrue a better outcome than they deserve due simply to the fact it's their turf...

Pete's right, we do not do field fortifications at all well -- nor are we particularly good on defense. However, I don't think it's a good idea to train for defense other than superficially as we now do for a number of reasons -- not in our aggressive psyche and not least because 'environmental' concerns preclude real digging on most bases and posts. That digging is necessary if you want to train it properly. We don't have the patience to do it right and we fight hard enough to do an acceptable job defending most of the time.

Though we probably could stop building really stupid RPG targets:

[PhilR]

I agree that the Taliban won’t fight a “war of COPs”, but to a degree, that’s the physical reality of the ISAF/GoA fight. To get to the population, we need to be among them. Since the idea of patrols from large remote bases has been discredited as ineffective (commuting to war), what we see (I imagine if I looked at a detailed map of our forces) is a host of smaller COPs spread out across the country. From there we conduct patrols (hopefully that’s the main function/reason).

I was somewhat troubled when this story first hit the news a few months ago because some of the reasoning being used on why these outposts were where they were sounded right out of the Khe Sanh playbook—by providing attractive targets, these outposts drew insurgents away from more critical populated areas and provided an opportunity to employ our advantages in firepower. I don’t know if this was actual planning, or after-the fact rationalizing. If it was the part of a deliberate plan, it doesn’t appear that we thought it through to ensure we could actually effectively employ that firepower and ability to maneuver/mass quickly (time/space calculations).

If the COPs are a reality, I agree with Ken that we need to be prepared to lose one every now and then—not based on gross incompetence, but by the nature of risk and the fact that the goddess of war does not always smile on us. However, understanding that kind of risk and likely bad occurrence from time to time, we ought to have our PA/Information plan set, as well as expectation management. Unfortunately, we are in a situation of expectation management, especially at home, that any action of more than a few dead or wounded is seen as a gross tactical mistake worthy of investigation and fault-finding.

I’m not stating that there is or isn’t fault in this case. I think it is worthy of study and reflection for how the larger campaign design either supports these outposts having a positive function, or how it can place them in untenable positions regardless of how well or poorly the perimeter is constructed. In the end, I’d state that the lack of popular support meant the lack of meaningful intel. The question is how to garner any popular support, even if minimal, without first establishing yourself in strength?

As an addendum, on the subject ofour COIN approach, I’m guessing that there is the additional option of small teams embedded in tribes or other governing structures. That could work. I’d say that if the political/social structure of governing supports a less static and visible place of governance, then this will work. However, at some point, the GoA must establish governing facilities that both symbolize and exercise their governing power. For example, the vaunted Combined Action Platoons(CAPs) in Vietnam took two main forms. The first was the compound CAP, where the CAP located itself, with its PF platoon and usually local government officials in a compound. This was usually coordinated in with the local battlespace owner for fire support and reinforcements (QRF), when/if there was a major attack. The other type of CAP was the mobile CAP which basically was on patrol 24/7 in its area of operations. It moved around constantly, depending upon its survival through the inability of VC to accurately predict where it would be, or even find it (at night). The mobile CAP was very effective in many instances in throwing the insurgents off and taking the initiative. However useful it was from a military sense, however, it was seen a sign of weakness in the political sense. Without an identifiable place to govern from, the local GVN looked like they lived in fear of the VC (which they did). At some point, the government had to establish a visible place to govern from in order to be legitimate.

Phil Ridderhof USMC

[Pete]

When I look at the image in the link below I can't imagine why TRADOC would be averse to the idea of presenting more instruction on the construction of field fortifications. If I recall correctly the original Fort Monroe was designed by a French officer of engineers who found himself unemployed after the battle of Waterloo.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_vXzyHAWg2g8/Ry...ian+Aerial.gif

[carl]

The construction of field fortifications might well be one of those subjects that goes against the grain of the American way of warfare, with our preference for offensive operations to achieve decisive results--we prefer the style of J.E.B. Stuart riding around the Union army and Patton chasing the Wehrmacht across France rather than digging in and waiting for the enemy to come to us.

Americans may not prefer to make field fortifications, but we have been very good at it in the past. In the later part of the Civil War if either side was given the time, and not much was needed, they constructed field fortifications that were extremely difficult to take. This may seem a minor point to note but it does show that we have been good at doing what needs to be done at the time.

[jcustis]

When I look at the image in the link below I can't imagine why TRADOC would be averse to the idea of presenting more instruction on the construction of field fortifications. If I recall correctly the original Fort Monroe was designed by a French officer of engineers who found himself unemployed after the battle of Waterloo.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_vXzyHAWg2g8/Ry...ian+Aerial.gif

Building fortifications are sort of what our combatt engineers are for, eh?

Let's say a COP is built That affords proximity to a village/town of a few kilometers. What does it really do for us, the counterinsurgent?

[Pete]

Jon, my posting of that image was a bit of horsing around on my part--it's Fort Monroe, Virginia, the current headquarters of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. The old fort was designed by a French engineer officer, Simon Bernard, who had earlier been Napoleon's aide-de-camp. The Army will soon vacate the installation and the old fort will be taken over by the National Park Service.

The building of fortifications is indeed a combat engineer mission, but the decision on whether or not to build them and site selection are made by maneuver commanders. What these outposts do as a minimum is provide a relatively safe place for soldiers to sleep in when they're not out patrolling as well as provide a location for command and control and the storage of supplies and equipment. In the real world most of the construction is often done by the unit that will be occupying the position, so it would make sense if fundamentals like good fields of fire and observation were taken into account before positions are dug. That's why I think a few hours of instruction on the basic principles of field fortification would be a good idea in schools for junior officers.

[William F. Owen]

Pete

That's why I think a few hours of instruction on the basic principles of field fortification would be a good idea in schools for junior officers.

Not something you can learn in a few hours, but training and education in this subject is essential and always has been.
How long does it take to train a Mortar Platoon Commander? Well learning how to site and construct FOBs/COPs takes way more skill than commanding a mortar platoon. Siting and construction is really something that should include formation level staffs.

[Pete]

You're right, Wilf, but as I said a bit earlier in the thread defensive operations seem to go against the American way of war. Field fortification is a relatively neglected subject outside of combat engineer circles.

[jcustis]

I am scratching my head right now because I am not seeing all the difficulty of which you guys are speaking.

If I'm going to position a COP, I conduct a leader's reconnaissance with ASCOPE in mind for the "C" in METT-TC, look at the task requirements (is it a laager for patrols only, a semi-permanent site for PRT and USAID enablers, etc.?) and consider the basic defensive position requirements. inherent in any static defense.

It is not like were are making water here guys, but rather more along the lines of constructing a patrol harbor site with direct fire barriers and some IDF protection, but that's pretty much it. What is so difficult that a basically trained officer can't open a pub with a few technical drawings detailing dimensions, and get started, even if he is not an engineer?

Engineers can tell us the calculated time to construct a COP based on soil composition and HESCO fill rates, but once you work a few barriers, the rest are really very easy to deal with.

Now, if I had to incorporate a Taco Bell Express into the site, that might take a bit more work, but it appears that Gen McChrystal has taken care of that with a directive that the AAFES oxygen-stealing largesse of chain restaurant crap in Afghanistan is bring terminated within the next 90 days.

[Pete]

Jon, it ain't rocket science, but the engagements at COP Keating and Wanat as well as the photos Ken White posted above show that some of these fortifications leave a lot to be desired. By the way, did you attend Bates College? I ran across your name on a college newsletter when I Googled your fire team article. I have family in the Bangor area.

[jcustis]

Yup, they left a lot to be desired, and I would offer the counterpoint that despite any knowledge base, a degree of give a f*ck and follow-through is still required to make designs, hopes, and wishes a reality. Either that or there was a striking reliance on fire superiority to win the day should any attack come.

A brief review of youtube videos posted by the various units to rotate through COP Keating show some pretty impressive displays of firepower being sprayed into the hills, but to what effect?

With just a little bit more coordination and smarts in a few areas, the bad guys are going to start to really negate our advantages in air-delivered fires. It's a tangent, but watching those videos made me sit back and rub my chin. Due to the mission behind COP Keating (locating the local PRT, from what I have read IIRC), there were probably few other suitable locations in the first place, so the answer seems to lie less in what they should have done to improve the position, and more in what could have been done to mitigate the inherent limitations. A lot more troops dedicate to patrolling the surroundings immediately come to mind.

And yes, I did attend Bates. Batman doesn't normally reveal the location to the Bat Cave, but you guys are slowly whittling down what anonymity does exist out there for me. ; )

[William F. Owen]

I think you to have differentiate two things here.

a.) Placing a position to protect something that has no choice as to where it is. -Vehicle check point, Police station, power plant, etc.

b.) Positioning a FOB/COP in a way that not only makes it defendable and useful, but also means it supports the operations it is part of. The requirements for a well defended position and a patrol based that actually supports part of Formation level patrol plan, are not the same.