Give an example and I'll tell you what could have gone wrong if you had faced a powerful opponent.
Give an example and I'll tell you what could have gone wrong if you had faced a powerful opponent.
Since you're making the assertion that we are tactically inept, and I am out here daily generally seeing the opposite, I think the onus is on you to prove it.Originally Posted by Fuchs
Define "a powerful opponent" - enfilading fire from a PKM kills, regardless of what the guy firing it is wearing.
Don't try to nail me on something that I didn't write.
I wrote "The behaviour observed in AFG is outright suicidal in modern army-on-army warfare."
A patrol moves out in several lightly armoured vehicles in terrain where it's visible beyond 1,000 m and often the convoy is even moving through a valley while surrounding mountain or hill tops are not secured.
A modern army would kill the whole convoy with ease.
An infantry squad comes in contact with the enemy, is pinned down by small arms fire and calls CAS for help.
In high end warfare, it would have been suppressed in the kill zone for 30-120 sec before being killed by mortar fire.
An outpost is established in company strength.
An army opponent would have destroyed it with artillery before its completion.
A civil engineering project is being guarded by infantry and light AFVs in an agricultural area.
Again, arty & good bye.
A patrol conducts a presence patrol.
To show yourself in army-on-army war = suicide. Even 20km deep in the division rear area.
An infantry-on-infantry contact in hilly terrain. One part of the small unit fixes, the other attempts to flank.
Competent armies have a security element in their flanks to stall flanking attempts - a two-man team with LMG suffices.
A house/compound is being assaulted. Suppressive fires + assault.
Again,a competent enemy would defend from more than one position, providing kill zones around the house from detached security elements or other fortified positions.
Infantry calls for helicopters or a Reaper drone for support.
Reaper is an easy target drone for modern battlefield air defences. Helicopters couldn't dare to fly high, much less over enemy-controlled terrain if they faced a modern opponent.
Infantry patrols without (near)permanent concealment or cover.
A sniper pair with a heavy rifle and actual AP cartridges kills them off one by one until they reach cover or concealment. Their vest plates are being penetrated at 500+ m.
A fortified position is being assaulted by TB infantry. The defenders shoot back.
Everyone looking over the wall instead of through a tiny slit or periscope would be shot by snipers. Every position without overhead cover would be a mortar kill zone. Every fortified position that has been identified a few minutes or more ago would already be a death trap, a mere firing mission for the enemy artillery with later mopping up by infantry.
Infantry is carrying M136s on patrol through a barren environment.
An enemy IFV arrives and accepts their surrender.
NATO soldiers expected to die within weeks of WW3 even without any nuclear attacks.
Today ISAF/OEF-A endure a lower attrition rate than a per cent per year.
Any attempt to claim that ISAF/OEF-A meet the survivability demands of modern high end warfare is utterly hopeless. The threat is marginal by comparison. Look at the South Ossetia conflict. More dead than in a year in Afghanistan - in a matter of days. The forces involved were much smaller.
A marginal threat does certainly not lead to the amount of carefulness as necessary in army-on-army warfare.
I know that these statements are not capable of comforting those who serve(d) in AFG, but they're the harsh truth.
Let me refer to this for further explanation.
The TB are far more permissive than an opposing army would be. Naturally, the Western troops use this freedom of action and use tactics that would not be acceptable against a less permissive opponent.
Well, I'd argue that the behaviour in Afghanistan is simply an adjustment of our own TTPs to the enemy. Has anyone seriously argued that we should fight the Warsaw Pact like we'd fight bandits? I don't think anyone would disagree with the point that Ken White raises with the insurgencies and skirmishes.
We were talking about small arms ammunition and what kills in a small-unit engagement. I don't get how a rifle platoon guarding a development project and getting flattened by a brigade of enemy artillery is related to it. I guess I failed to read the intent of your change in topic - mea culpa.
The fact of the matter remains that small unit firefights of 10-40 guys in Afghanistan are much the same as they would be against a regular foe anywhere else. Small groups of guys trying to shoot, move and communicate to kill each other with crew-served weapons doing most of the killing. For me to do so, I still like light rifles, MGs and light mortars (and other HE-senders). Arty or air are just add-ons for either side; having neither air defence nor effective indirect fire is not a characteristic unique to either Afghan insurgents or irregular foes in general and CAS and indirect are not ubiquitous in Afghanistan.
Last edited by Infanteer; 03-09-2010 at 07:21 PM.
OK, let's try it this way:
a) You are Inf Plt leader in a great war. Your Plt is in combat with an enemy who's using agricultural walls for cover 400 m ahead of your position. You can call for mortar support.
b) You lead a TB warband in AFG. Your warband has fixed a Canadian patrol 400 m ahead, behind a wall. You have 20 minutes left till enemy air can be expected to intervene. You do not have mortar support available.
c) You are Inf Plt leader in AFG. Your Plt is in combat and fixed behind a wall. You have 20-40 minutes left till air will intervene.
d) You are Inf Plt leader in a great war. You are in combat and fixed behind a wall. The Bn main fight is elsewhere and the Bde main fight isn't in your Bn area. You get no support, but you've got a couple SMK grenades and a large area with much concealment is just 100m to your south. You expect a red mortar attack ion less than two minutes.
Do you get where I see the difference?
Arty and mortars are not "add-ons". They're essential combined arms combat components. The can eradicate your small unit in minutes, something the TB didn't achieve EVER against ANY Western small unit in YEARS of warfare.
Facing such a threat and not being sure that enemy comm is interrupted, you have little other choice than to keep contacts brief and move (disappear) often - while you could sit safely behind the very same cover for hours if in combat against TB.
Sorry for spoiling, but I'd like to add 1 table to Ken White's comment.
It is simply a matter of scale. It is also a matter of opponent mass and capability.
Wilf, said:
Has any Red Team ever dared to test this idea?I would dare, SUGGEST and without blinking. - Suggest means go work it out, do the trials and do the training. IF it does not work well, DO NOT DO IT!
No but armies running around with STENs, MP-40's and PPSH have pretty much done a useful level of empirical testing. MP-7 is actually deployed in A'Stan, but I don't know in what form or scale.
The IDF of 1948 had predominantly STEN Guns and MG-34/BRENs and very few rifles. The Arabs in contrast had mostly rifles. Not proof in and of itself but food for thought!
....and as I said, I'd want a lot of testing before being more than provocative with such ideas
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
Add new factors:
Such as the Canadian force fixed by the TB force is not authorized to employ CAS or indirect fires due to the Civilian (innocent) populace in and among the civilian (insurgent) populace he is fixed by. The location has a high number of IEDs limiting his freedom of maneuver, but they are known by his opponent so do not affect his maneuver; and because there are no front lines, he can hear over the ICOM radios being used by the insurgent that a complex attack is being pulled together that will likely have him taking fire from 270 degrees on his position with the next 15-20 minutes.
Aerial evacuation is possible, but not until sometime after sunset which is some 7 hours away. All ISR has been pulled to support higher priority operations elsewhere. Nearest QRF is 15 KM away, but will have to clear IEDs and deal with a continuous TIC to get to your location.
Meanwhile your commander is expecting you to "clear" the compounds to your front, while the compounds you "cleared" yesterday to your rear are now reoccupied by insurgents, as well as the innocent civilians who live there.
Oh yes, and your mission is not to defeat the insurgent, but to protect the populace.
It may not be graduate level war, but you better at least have your GED.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
Well, we don't seem to argue about the degree of difficulty and whether the same behaviour would be suicidal in a great war anymore (my original points).
You seem to pile on points that need to be considered by a small unit leader instead, and that's really an endless game because - and I think you understand that - it would be no problem to me to add one or two forum pages of things that should be considered (but cannot all be considered) by a small unit leader in a great war.
There would be many things included that are not necessary - at times even contraproductive - in a small war environment. Like minimising the exposure to airborne sensors, radio silence, jammed radio links or being enticed to survive the war by simply becoming a POW.
Sorry Fuchs, but I have read many many AARs that suggest that the "lethality" of arty is not even close to what the manual says. Tima and again, troops that have gone to the ground have survived arty and gotten back in the fight. Example: the actual impact area of an arty round is small and most of the blast energy goes up and is dispersed.
I actually agree almost 100% on this one. See Wilf's fire team concept for what I would do about it (i.e tactic and training based solutions, not equipment) and add some improved organic HE direct fire capability.An infantry-on-infantry contact in hilly terrain. One part of the small unit fixes, the other attempts to flank.
Competent armies have a security element in their flanks to stall flanking attempts - a two-man team with LMG suffices.
A house/compound is being assaulted. Suppressive fires + assault.
Again,a competent enemy would defend from more than one position, providing kill zones around the house from detached security elements or other fortified positions.
WOW, where do these mega soldiers live and how do we recruit them!Infantry patrols without (near)permanent concealment or cover.
A sniper pair with a heavy rifle and actual AP cartridges kills them off one by one until they reach cover or concealment. Their vest plates are being penetrated at 500+ m.
A fortified position is being assaulted by TB infantry. The defenders shoot back.
Everyone looking over the wall instead of through a tiny slit or periscope would be shot by snipers. Every position without overhead cover would be a mortar kill zone. Every fortified position that has been identified a few minutes or more ago would already be a death trap, a mere firing mission for the enemy artillery with later mopping up by infantry.
Seriously now, your concept of lethality is not shared by historic or modern AARs.
Infantry is carrying M136s on patrol through a barren environment.
An enemy IFV arrives and accepts their surrender.or not.
Reed
You're writing about HE with PD fuse. In other words; you're late by 40-60 years.
Today's arty shells detonate before impact, the effect goes downwards and sidewards.This was first done with 90mm AAA shells in late 1944 Ardennes offensive.
ICM shells (1970's and later tech) lack even the dispersal pattern weakness of HE shells (which left forward and rear quite untouched by fragments).
Your statement sounds as if someone told others in 1914 that arty is harmless based on Crimean War experiences.
Maybe you should read AARs of armies that did more than mere strategic mopping up or beating up Third World forces during the 20th century.Seriously now, your concept of lethality is not shared by historic or modern AARs.
My concept of lethality fits easily to experiences like the one that the average remaining life expectancy of a newly promoted German Panzergrenadier 2nd Lieutenant was measured in mere weeks (single digit!) during 1943-1945.
And let's not forget that dead people rarely write AARs.
Last edited by Fuchs; 03-10-2010 at 10:12 PM.
Can you point me to some of those?
Sorta make one wonder why the 'manual' would say something different...Now that's true. Done it myself. Also have just charged right through it and survived. Unfortunately, I had a number of friends who weren't so lucky.Tima and again, troops that have gone to the ground have survived arty and gotten back in the fight.
Combat is weird -- you can find examples to prove almost anything. I saw a guy in Korea take a 76mm round that passed through his stomach, you could literally see through him -- he was back to duty in about six weeks...
Saw a Viet Namese with an undetonated 40mm Grenade HE round in his thorax, the Medics removed it. Wuithout blowing him or themselves up...
On balance, Artillery was the biggest killer in WW I and WW II, averages generally running between 65 and 80% if Artillery was involved in the action. There's this:
""The cause of wounds suffered by soldiers varied widely depending on specific circumstances. A British Corps reported 42.8% wounds caused by bullets during the El Alamein offensive. However the percentage of battle wounds to british soldiers by weapon 1939-45 overall was:
Mortar, grenade, bomb, shell ...........75%
Bullet, AT mine................................10%
mine & booby trap...........................10%
Blast and crush.................................2%
Chemical.......................................... 2%
other............................................. ...1%
from J Ellis WWII Databook table 57 p257""
Recall also that those figures and the ones of which the 'manual' cued were based on those who received medical treatment; in a war, no one does autopsies to determine what killed Johnny. Nor do they do memorial services or ramp ceremonies -- too many casualties for all that stuff.Uh, yeah -- unless they're using VT or Proximity fuzes. Then, as Fuchs said, they pop overhead and rain down. Also, don't discount the damage of fragements deflected from that upward dispersion -- or from the rocks and dirt thrown out of the crater at high speed. I've still got little pebbles and flecks of steel that pop out of my bod from Korea. The piece of steel under my kneecap is a handy weather predictor...Example: the actual impact area of an arty round is small and most of the blast energy goes up and is dispersed..
No mega bods required. Presented with the opportunity, you'd do it...WOW, where do these mega soldiers live and how do we recruit them!
If you mean AARs from Afghanistan or Iraq (IIRC, 44% of Medevacs in Iraq during 2003-06 were for disease or accidents) or even Viet Nam, they don't really count cause the bad guys didn't really have much in the way of HE support and were generally outnumbered heavily by us (though one could say that their IEDs are poor mans artillery...). Perhaps you can find me some from Korea or WW II that corroborate what you say?Seriously now, your concept of lethality is not shared by historic or modern AARs.
As UBoat 509 said the other day, anyone who thinks the 60mm mortar isn't dangerous hasn't been on the receiving end.
Last edited by Ken White; 03-10-2010 at 11:53 PM.
I didn't think Fuchs was criticizing anyone or any Army, he is
criticizing governments that engage in potentially fruitless nation building wars which rarely work and are terribly wasteful of people.
He is also saying those kinds of wars teach -- embed, even -- bad habits and the purchase of expensive equipment with limited uses (MRAPS, anyone...). I very strongly agree with him.
As Infanteer said and this is really the point:Presuming you mean the "regular" opponent requires more considerations, that's correct. A whole lot more. Artillery just for openers, mass and rapid maneuver capability or two quick additives.....killing them requires the same skills as facing a regular opponent - only with them you have more considerations to take into account.(emphasis added / kw)
As Fuchs says:They are indeed truths and he's just scratching the surface. I appreciate and thank everyone now serving but no professional should get lulled into believing that either Afghanistan or Iraq were or are wars in the total sense. They are a series of skirmishes against lightly armed opponents and are a totally different thing to warfare against even a near peer opponent. While major war is itself a series of small unit skirmishes, there are so many more of them and so many more elements come into play that a very different mindset -- and equipment set -- comes into play.I know that these statements are not capable of comforting those who serve(d) in AFG, but they're the harsh truth.
The myth that "COIN is the graduate level of war" is dangerous. It does require a degree of thought and interaction that differs from conventional warfare but it does not require less thought or effort. Indeed, conventional warfare is far, far more demanding on commanders and large units even though it is not much more demanding on individuals and small units.
It is simply a matter of scale. It is also a matter of opponent mass and capability. Governments are at fault for committing their troops to poorly thought out campaigns; Armies are at fault for presuming those campaigns are the future. Every war is different, yet warfare changes little and small wars differ considerably from large ones.
The US Army picked up a number of bad habits in Viet Nam -- some of those bad habits (micromanagement and lack of trust of subordinates being two big ones, overuse of Artillery in COIN like operations and inadequate and insufficient patrolling being two more) still adversely impact the force 35 years later. In fact, the Small War in Korea still has flawed legacy problems (the one year tour, condensed and 'economical' training) 60 years later...
I would contend that these small wars simply solidified traits and trends that were first formed during the big wars (WW 1 and WW 2), and those traits in turn stem from some of Root's reforms and the historical American reliance on a very small standing army and mass militia in times of conflict (which translates after about 1916 to the draft).The US Army picked up a number of bad habits in Viet Nam -- some of those bad habits (micromanagement and lack of trust of subordinates being two big ones, overuse of Artillery in COIN like operations and inadequate and insufficient patrolling being two more) still adversely impact the force 35 years later. In fact, the Small War in Korea still has flawed legacy problems (the one year tour, condensed and 'economical' training) 60 years later...
Many of the bad habits the force has been saddled with came from poor planning for the next big war, not from participation in small wars. The failures and omissions run deeper than "small versus big" or caliber debates.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
I generally agree, pointing out only that
Each generation sort of gets its own war(s) and thus learns its own lessons -- which we notoriously do not analyze well or successfully pass on to our successors.This is not a quibble, it is important:
Each war adds its own fillips to previously absorbed bad lessons.With that I totally agree.Many of the bad habits the force has been saddled with came from poor planning for the next big war, not from participation in small wars.While that is true, it should not be allowed to obscure the fact that bad lessons accrue in all wars for the next one or that small anything cannot totally prepare one for a big anything. one reason for the phenomenon as you state it is that junior leaders in one war mistakenly presume their next war will be like their last where they may be far more senior and thus able to do far more damage (See again Korea and Viet Nam. See also the PowellThe failures and omissions run deeper than "small versus big" or caliber debates.
Doctrine...).
It is a matter of scale and that is very important. What you say is true at the macro level; at the micro or personal level it is all too easy to base ones future plans and actions -- and thus ones responses to stimuli -- on current experience.
That is rarely wise
Agree, but we also tend to obsess on the micro level without making any real attempt to fix the problem (or at least understand it) at the macro level. That's why I like dragging this old rock out from time to time. Fixing (or at least messing with) the micro also makes some people feel like they're accomplishing something, while in fact the bigger problem remains as the elephant in the corner.
When I look at how the institutions of defense respond to external stimuli (in the form of conflicts), it's interesting to see how their responses have hardened and become more strident in the years after World War II. I suspect part of that is a function of sheer size, but it has certainly allowed the macro problems to linger on and multiply at all levels.
And now I'll put the pet rock away and stop derailing the thread...
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
I think maybe we're throwing pet rocks past each other.
Perhaps a bad choice of words on my part; I 've noticed one can educate the young and even the middle aged. However, old Bull elephants are not going to listen or change. So you've got to get the young to think right in hopes that when they get old, they'll be in the habit. Don Vandergriff sent me a briefing he'd presented to the Chief of Staff -- of which nothing had come -- I wrote him back and suggested he edumacate the LTs and they would change the system as the grew in it and pointed out starting at the top and working down does not work, even a really smart guy like Shy Meyer discovered that.It's not a derail, it's pertinent and you're correct that some obsess over inconsequentials.And now I'll put the pet rock away and stop derailing the thread...
However, the difference between low and high intensity war is quite far from being inconsequential. That point needs emphasis.
Kaur:
I don't see any spoiling effect. Your chart doesn't contradict a thing I've written here. In fact, if it does anything, it backs up my comment that "(Fuchs) is criticizing governments that engage in potentially fruitless nation building wars which rarely work and are terribly wasteful of people" and "Governments are at fault for committing their troops to poorly thought out campaigns; Armies are at fault for presuming those campaigns are the future."
Micromanaging the military and other things
Ken, I'm glad to see you say that about micromanaging the military. I can't comment on lessons learned from Vietnam, and I'll leave to you where the Army picked it up. I certainly see reflections of corporate America in the Blackberries, instant access to hundreds of e-mails per day, and control over every little jot and tittle of everything that comes up all day every day with the staff level officers. I have even started a category on this:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/categ...-the-military/
Beginning with one of the most absurd instances I have ever seen in print:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2009/...-riskless-war/
I'm sure Ken could add several thousand instances from his career. It's disappointing. One of my dislikes of the ROE in Afghanistan is not what it says, although I have my beefs. It is the very notion of a four star general issuing a tactical directive to Lance Corporals and Sergeants in the field under fire. Lord, why can't generals focus in logistics and strategy, and let the boys in the field focus on tactics?
As for the issue of the infantry half-kilometer, there is at least one interesting comment where I weighed in:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2010/...#comment-29570
This is similar to some comments I am getting to this article via mail. No one in the Army believes that they will ever get the best weapons (or even the best training). It's a matter of making the most of what's there. The Marines do this with their rifle qualifications at 500 yards, and the fact that the Army doesn't do this has to do with strategic choices, not capabilities.
That said, I find it rather criminal that in all these years, the Army / Marines have not seen fit to invest in a replacement for the Stoner system of weapons that at least uses an open bolt system (or better yet, piston), and gives the fire team and squad a more variable choice of weapons at their disposal.
It would appear to me that Major Ehrhart's recommendations are basically correct. Other than money, what reason could there be NOT to implement both better training and more latitude in weapons selection?
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