Roadside Bombs & IEDs (catch all)

[William F. Owen]

Probably the most effective LOO for reducing IEDs is to be much more aggressive in our IO campaigns, locally and globally, challenging the manhood of any Pashtun who would let an IED do his fighting for him. We cannot underestimate the power of the offensive warrior culture on these people. Sneaky defensive tactics are beneath them. We need to rub that in their faces.

Have I understood you correctly, Bob? Why? I cannot think of any circumstance where that would succeed. What's more is I think an assumption that this argument could sway them verges on painting them as stupid and irrational.

Are such "Sneaky defensive tactics" beneath us? Can of worms?

....and I think it would backfire badly, when the Pashtun watch us call in fire-support, or the mention the fact that we have women flying combat in the theatre.

[Rex Brynen]

Have I understood you correctly, Bob? Why? I cannot think of any circumstance where that would succeed. What's more is I think an assumption that this argument could sway them verges on painting them as stupid and irrational.

My thought too--and as earlier mentioned, ambushes are very much the traditional Afghan fighting style.

[Ken White]

Not to mention promising to do things one has no intention of doing, being hospitable to one's guests while under the roof then killing them as soon as they cross the threshhold outbound -- or siccing the women and kids on the casualties of enemies.

More cultural wishful thinking, perhaps...

[Bob's World]

I think I actually laid out an array of activities to employ...but thanks for focusing on the first one as if it were the only one!

And no one assumes these guys are smarter, or tougher than I do.

I just figure if what is doing isn't working, one should try another tact. We are under-employing the IO LOO on all fronts, this one included. It won't cure the problem, but it will help.

[Ken White]

I just figure if what is doing isn't working, one should try another tact.

I've often been assured I have no tact...

I do BTW, agree that what we're doing now is not working but I also don't think your suggestions will work either. The basic problem is that we are trying to do something that is just not going to be accomplished. IOW, the Goal is unachievable and should never have been undertaken. Therefor much of what anyone suggests is unlikely to 'work.'

Zealot66

The Troops of the 1st Bde, 82d Abn Div when in Kandahar during 2005 and before being relieved by the Canadian 1/PPCLI in 2005-06 were routinely pulling week plus dismounted and two week or more mounted patrols, all resupplied by helicopter. Those patrols were variously in Platoon or company strength and were quite successful. I have no idea why the technique is not used by others.

Or maybe a little bit of one...

[Bob's World]

I've often been assured I have no tact...

I do BTW, agree that what we're doing now is not working but I also don't think your suggestions will work either. The basic problem is that we are trying to do something that is just not going to be accomplished. IOW, the Goal is unachievable and should never have been undertaken. Therefor much of what anyone suggests is unlikely to 'work.'

Zealot66

The Troops of the 1st Bde, 82d Abn Div when in Kandahar during 2005 and before being relieved by the Canadian 1/PPCLI in 2005-06 were routinely pulling week plus dismounted and two week or more mounted patrols, all resupplied by helicopter. Those patrols were variously in Platoon or company strength and were quite successful. I have no idea why the technique is not used by others.

Or maybe a little bit of one...

People talking tactics, then someone jumps in and drags the conversation to the strategic level! I guess I stepped on that one Ken, nicely played...


Certainly, IMO, the critical issue that must be addressed in order to reduce the number of landmines in Afghanistan is the perceived illegitimacy of the Karzai government. I believe an open, all stake holders invited, Loya Jirga is the best way to address that top strategic issue. This will have best impact on getting the TB leadership to stand down (or "reintegrate and reconcile")
TB leadership is largely waging a Revolutionary insurgency, so their incorporation, in a controlled, reasonable fashion, into governance makes sense.

As to the fighters themselves, they are largely fighting a resistance insurgency. Affairs in Kabul don't mean much them. They fight us because we are here, and because the TB leadership, flush with Poppy $$, can pay them a day’s wage for a day’s work, (which by the way most men find the preferred way to feed their families, not taking charity from some foreign NGOs). Even if that day's work is at night putting in IEDs or joining a team of fighters. We best address resistance insurgency by simply going home. Success with the Loya Jirga above allows us to VASTLY reduce our presence.

The fly in the ointment, is that no one can predict or control the results of a true Loya Jirga; thus why it is perceived as legitimate. Thus why the elections we enabled were NOT perceived as legitimate (did anyone wonder what the results would be??)

So, yes, I have strategic ideas as to reducing IEDs.

I also believe based on my training and experience that an IO campaign that hammers over the radio waves here (these people for large part do not read, so leave your flyers and billboards at home) the honor of Pashtunwali, the Pashtun people, and cowardly attributes of IEDs that kill local women and children as well as the foreign soldiers, is an important step that needs to be stepped up. Not a cure all, there will always be those that will rationalize it to be within the "rules."

[Cole]

It's not related to aviation and IEDs but the Israelis used to drag fences behind their patrolling jeeps to leave a unique pattern in the ground so anyone crossing it would leave footprints. Same principle applies to detecting anyone digging IEDs. I also recall sitting on the beach at Tel Aviv and watching all different kinds of helicopters constantly fly by along the coast right after the Palestinian intifada attempted a rubber raft beach landing back in 1990. Use air routes paralleling key ground routes and have a constant stream of aircraft watching for trouble.

Liked the idea of using helicopters to drop off 2-man to fire team sized OPs with good optics at multiple high terrain OP locations each night along troubled routes to include false insertions. Then have the helicopter return to base and pick-up a second squad and go park somewhere nearby on secure terrain to prepare to respond to any problems detected. Or monitor the OPs using loitering UAS with an Apache/UH-60 QRF ready to respond.

[Ken White]

People talking tactics, then someone jumps in and drags the conversation to the strategic level! I guess I stepped on that one Ken, nicely played...

Just stating that it is my belief that we are pursuing the old impossible dream...

I don't disagree with what you suggest and I strongly agree that what we're doing now is not working, Yet, I really doubt your suggestions will make much difference if implemented. Unfortunately,we cannot leave just yet and are thus doomed to a holding action. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Your oft stated advice to think about what we're trying to do before we implement is totally valid -- unfortunately, no one did that in 2001...

[Rex Brynen]

so too is disappearing when confronted by superior force

There's an excellent example of this, and of the Taliban scout/picket/sentry/early warning system, in today's NYT:

As Marines Move In, Taliban Fight a Shadowy War

By C.J. CHIVERS
New York Times
Published: February 1, 2010

KARARDAR, Afghanistan — The Marine infantry company, accompanied by a squad of Afghan soldiers, set out long before dawn. It walked silently through the dark fields with plans of arriving at a group of mud-walled compounds in Helmand Province at sunrise.

The company had received intelligence reports that 40 to 50 Taliban fighters had moved into this village a few days before, and the battalion had set a cordon around it. The Marines hoped to surprise any insurgents within.

But as the company moved, shepherds whistled in the darkness, passing warning of the Americans’ approach. Dogs barked themselves hoarse. The din rose in every direction, enveloping the column in noise. And then, as the Marines became visible in the bluish twilight, a minivan rumbled out of one compound. Its driver steered ahead of the company, honking the van’s horn, spreading the alarm. Spotters appeared on roofs.

Marine operations like this one in mid-January, along with interviews with dozens of Marines, reveal the insurgents’ evolving means of waging an Afghan brand of war, even as more American troops arrive.

...

On the morning of the sweep, made by Weapons Company, Third Battalion, First Marines, a large communications antenna that rose from one compound vanished before the Marines could reach it. The man inside insisted that he had seen nothing. And when the Marines moved within the compounds’ walls, people in nearby houses released white pigeons, revealing the Americans’ locations to anyone watching from afar.

The Taliban and their supporters use other signals besides car horns and pigeons, including kites flown near American movements and dense puffs of smoke released from chimneys near where a unit patrols.

“You’ll go to one place, and for some reason there will be a big plume of smoke ahead of you,” said Capt. Paul D. Stubbs, the Weapons Company commander. “As you go to the next place, there will be another.”

[Firn]

My thought too--and as earlier mentioned, ambushes are very much the traditional Afghan fighting style.

Well ambushes are a favorite traditional welcome party for pretty much every tribe or folk living in the mountains. Oetzi the Iceman was killed by an arrow into the back by friendly people waiting hidden near the traditional resting place on this path running over the Similaun pass. A true Hunter's shot into the heart.

Dear Hannibal met a couple of other, initially very friendly people as he tried to cross the Alps:

"So long as the Carthaginians had remained in the plains the various chieftains of the Allobroges had left them alone because of their fear both of the Carthaginian cavalry and also of the barbarian troops who were escorting them. But as soon as the latter had set off for home and Hannibal's troops began to advance into difficult country, the Allobrogian chiefs gathered a large force and took up commanding positions alongside the road by which the Carthaginians would have to climb."

"In the narrow pass the marching column was rapidly losing cohesion; there was great confusion and excitement amongst the men, and still more amongst the terrified horses, so the tribesmen, in the hope that any hostile action by themselves would be enough to complete their discomfiture, came swarming down the rocky and precipitous slopes, sure-footed as they were from long familiarity with their wild and trackless terrain."

Another place, another ambush:

"The natives, springing from their places of concealment, fiercely assaulted front and rear, leaping into the fray, hurling missiles, rolling down rocks from the heights above."

This tradition continued happily:

Frederick's brother, Leopold of Austria, led an army of 3000 to 5000 men — about one third of them knights on horseback — to crush the rebellious confederates, planning a surprise attack from south via Lake Aegeri and the Morgarten pass and counting on a complete victory over the rebellious peasants.

The Confederates of Schwyz — supported by the Confederates of Uri, who feared for their autonomy, but not supported by the Confederates of Unterwalden — expected the army in the west near the village of Arth, where they had erected fortifications. A historically plausible legend tells of the Knight of Huenenberg who shot an arrow into the camp of the Confederates with the attached message "watch out on St. Otmar's day at the Morgarten".

The Confederates prepared a road-block and an ambush at a point between Lake Aegeri and Morgarten pass where the small path led between the steep slope and a swamp. When about 1500 men attacked from above with rocks, logs and halberds, the knights had no room to defend themselves and suffered a crushing defeat, while the foot soldiers in the rear fled back to the city of Zug. A chronicler described the Confederates, unfamiliar with the customs of battles between knights, as brutally butchering everything that moved and everyone unable to flee. This founded the reputation of the Confederates as barbaric, yet fierce and respectable fighters.

Note the great use of IRD (Improvised Rolling Devices), which were also greatly used during the Napoleonic wars and resurfaced as avalanches triggered purposefully by artillery fire. IRRC the Indians quickly rediscovered this specific method during the Kargil war. During all that time the simple stone powered by gravitation proved ever handy for the defender...


Considering history I'm pretty sure that human creativity in harming other humans knows little to no bounds and that the mountains make some designs more effective than in other places. Fighting smart can mean using those. This poses quite some challenge for the soldiers fighting there. The Helicopter can be part of the solution.


Firn

[zealot66]

Im reminded of a story I read about the Australian SAS doing 7-10 day recce's on main trafficways. SOP for the aussies to focus on good eyeball recon before moving assets in. They used this to good effect in vietnam. Using a small reconnaisance force and then moving larger troop movements into an area. Well, because they were not in command and control, this specific area intell on the IED activity was disregarded by the US and sadly several Marines were killed on this roadway.

I dont know what the standard is for US troops being out in observation posts and staying put but it was insinuated that the US is impatient in their reconnaisance and intelligence gathering and just balling it down the road or into an AO. Drones are not going to pick up everything and there is no replacement for eyes on target or humint.

Hopefully, the winter will provide a time for a complete intelligence build up for the spring offensive where the taliban are apparently staying put and waiting for the fight in Helmand province.

Again, Im an amateur in this field and I have read each and every post and appreciate the input.