Combat Action in Wanat, Afghanistan (2008)

This story brought to you by GrogNews' Guardian. This superb blog is a must read, fellows.

July 2008, Combat Outpost Kahler, near the village of Wanat, Waygal valley, Afghanistan. 49 US Army and 24 ANA are attacked by numerically superior Taliban forces. This is one combat action for which we now have a great tactical analysis from the Combat Studies Institute Press.

Grab it here (opens a pdf).

Thanks to GrogNews for the heads up.
Cheers,

Not All Human Conflicts Are Created The Same

Apparently. The latest issue of the journal Nature has a paper detailing the statistical analysis of insurgencies that strongly suggests that, casualty-wise, insurgencies follow the same trend as conventional wars yet they are significantly different in terms of the frequency of casualties and the underlying mechanics generating them. (Click read more below to read this entry)

Straight into the Teeth of the Lion: Hermann Balck's Attack on Martelange, 1940

The campaign Germany unleashed against France in 1940 is one of the few clear examples of the so-called “blitzkrieg”. The details of this campaign at the operational level can be checked out in the widely available literature. Today,  a combat vignette of one of the tactical battles that was pivotal for the success of the German Army. A few considerations on the operational level are given to understand the context ...

(An expanded view and explanation of this figure is in the body of this entry, click "Read more" below)

Thunder Run from Hell: Captain Billotte's "Amokfahrt" at Stonne

Stonne, France, May 16th 1940.
The Wehrmacht panzers have miraculously made it through the Ardennes and France's front door at Sedan is about to be open wide. Crucial to the hard-earned bridgehead at Sedan is the control of the ridiculously small village of Stonne ...

"Operation Phantom Fury: The Assault and Capture of Fallujah, Iraq" by Dick Camp

"Operation Phantom Fury" came out in the US past Friday. I have a few books about the second battle of Fallujah, but this one caught me by surprise. Written by a retired Marine officer, the perspective of the narrative covers the operational, grand tactical and tactical levels of the battle that the US Marines fought so hard. It is really a pleasure to read military history books written by servicemen.The physical book itself is just great ...

"Why We Fight Now", a Documentary About The Green Berets and the War on Terror

This film is getting some moderate attention in the US media. Featured here the first part, please go to Youtube.com to see the whole film divided in 6 parts.

I'm guessing this film will generate some moderate friction between the US special operations forces. The many special forces branches in the US are currently competing for funding and the film appears to be putting forward the idea that the Green Berets are specially apt for fighting insurgencies.

Cheers,

The Armed Scout 645

Looking good! :)
This thing can pack a lot of punch. Learn more about its capabilities here.

Stay Away from that DNA, You Terrorist!

Companies that sell biotechnology reagents are to adopt a new screening tool that attempts to avoid DNA getting into the hands of terrorists.

I work with synthetic DNA every single day and I can't comprehend how on earth synthetic DNA purchased by terrorists can be a significant threat.

Using synthetic DNA one can amplify genes, let's say the gene for certain toxin from a pathogen. But from the amplified gene to the final product (the toxin, for example) there is a long, technically complex and painful path. In addition machines that can synthesize DNA are not that expensive.

Cheers,

"Warrior's Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting" Trickling into Bookstores

This book is trickling down to the shelves of the biggest bookstores in the Washington DC area. It was about time (it was available at Amazon since the beginning of September)!

I got my copy this morning and browsed it briefly. From what I could read, it looks like a great tactical analysis of the battle, with frequent references to the operational situation. Right at the introduction the author bashes the US Army top brass quite a lot.

I thought the book was going to be a bit more thick. This is a picture of the book on my desk.

Looks like a great read for fans of Steel Beasts ProPE.

More details later.

Cheers,

"The Defense of Jisr Al Doreaa", A New Classic in COIN

Have you guys read "The Defense of Duffer's Drift", the classic book on small unit tactics written by the British soldier and military thinker Major General Sir Earnest D. Swinton? "The Defense of Duffer's Drift" is centered on the defense of a river crossing by a young officer in charge of a platoon of British light infantry during the Boer War. This officer has a series of dreams, each one starting at the planning of the defense, going through the unsuccessful attempts to defend the drift and ending in a series of lessons learned that he applies in the next dream. In the final dream, the young officer finally succeeds. There were at least one other book with the same format of "plan-execute-improve" cycle of dreams: "The Defense of Hill 781", by Robert McDonough (if you are playing Steel Beasts, this one is a must).

"The Defense of Jisr Al Doreaa" is written in the same format, but the defense is now of a combat outpost in modern Iraq. The young officer belongs to the US Army and goes through six dreams in which he and his troops fight insurgents in the small town of Jisr Al Doreaa. The officer faces challenges that will push him to polish his knowledge of tactics he learnt for conventional wars (security, sector defense, correct assesment of fields of fire, etc) and learn new the new tactics required for fighting an insurgency (patrols, counter-ambushes, counter-sniper tactics, how to move through the "human terrain", etc).

Learning tactics from after action reports or other type of combat narrative is always easier and more enjoyable when there is an explanation of why and how the tactical decisions were made. That is exactly what makes "The Defense of Jisr Al Doreaa" such a wonderful book.

The book is short enough to be read in one sitting and is formatted in a way that would fit in a slightly oversized pocket. Perfect for reading during that last leg of the airlift and sized to fit into any pocket of the combat fatigues. Don't get fooled by the lenght or size of this book: it packs a lot of knowledge.

As a bonus, a copy of "The Defense of Duffer's Drift" is included at the end.

Cheers,

Free New Wargame: "March to Baghdad: Decision at Tallil Air Base"

A new ProSim title, "March to Baghdad: Decision at Tallil Air Base" is availabe (for free!) at the Armchair General's website.

Main menu. Click for an expanded view.

This mini-game consists of two scenarios that allow players to take command of battalion-sized forces belonging to the 3rd BCT (the Hammer brigade) during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The two scenarios included in the mini game focus on the fight around Talil Air Base.

In-game screenshot of the first scenario. Click the image for an expanded view.

The Hammer's Brigade scheme of maneuver near the Talil Air Base. From "On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom". Click the image for an expanded view.

As with previous ProSim titles based on recent conflicts, this is a great opportunity to interactively learn military history.

Congratulations to Pat Proctor (head honcho of ProSim), who by the way has been recently deployed to Iraq. Thanks for your service, Pat! EDIT: and off course congrats to all the crew of ProSim!

Cheers,

US Marines' Assault on Danahem: Close Combat is Here to Stay

The USMC, NATO and ANA forces joint assault on the Taliban-held village of Danahem (Afghanistan) is all over the news today.

A U.S. Marine of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment fires on Taliban positions from a rooftop in the village of Dahaneh, Aug. 12, 2009 in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Alfred De Montesquiou)
Used without permit or monetary gain. Comment to this entry for concerns about copyright infringement.

For civilians like me, details on how the assault was conducted at the tactical level are only available from the traditionally poor media reports.

A marine with Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Regiment of the 2nd MEF, patrols the outskirts of the village of Khwaji Jamal, Aug. 10, 2009, in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
Used without permit or monetary gain. Comment to this entry for concerns about copyright infringement.

But something can be sorted out from those news stories.

"Marines were met with small arms, mortar and rocket propelled grenade fire as they flew in helicopters over Taliban lines and dropped into the town." CBS/AP

"... Marines rolled into the town despite roadside bomb attacks and gunfire." CBS/AP

Our Marines pushed through and got really close with the Taliban. In a certain way this is no surprise, the small-units tactical doctrine of the USMC recognizes that there is no substitute for close combat.

From the above quotes and if one takes the media reports face value, apparently the Marines maneuvered through the Taliban without gaining fire superiority. I'm not talking here about shooting back at the Taliban who opened fire at the incoming troops but rather to the old American-style better-safe-than-sorry, all-out type of fire superiority. Do you guys remember the old saying: "Fire without maneuver is indecisive, maneuver without fire is fatal"? That saying is even on one USMC doctrinal publication for small units! Part of this apparent departure from old time SOPs can potentially be explained by the concerns to harm the civilian population. Take a look at this other snippet:

"Martin [Captain, Golf Co, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines] said the Marines had devised tactics to minimize civilian casualties in the densely populated area. He said troops would strictly limit the type of weapons they used and would stick to a "proportional response" when under fire." CBS/AP

If this is true I can't even imagine the effort and the increased risk faced by our troops while changing their drills and tactical stance from soldiers killing militants to SWAT cops liberating hostages. I can only commend the sacrifices they make for our nation.

And finally, the always controversial point of air support for fighting insurgents.

"U.S. Marine Harrier jets streaking overhead and dropping flares in a show of force." CBS/AP

I find it hard to believe that these aircraft were there just as a show of force. But the fact that apparently they didn't have to drop ordinance on the town is good news.

As time passes, stories from this battle will start to come by.

On the meantime: Semper Fi!

Suggested reading:

Let's Get Closer: Remembering the Relevance of Close Combat
By Lt. Col. Robert R. Leonhard, U.S. Army retired
Army Magazine September 2004

On War #293: The Price of Bad Tactics
By William Lind, February 2009
(Discusses the relationship of poor infantry tactics and the excessive reliance on close air support)

Cheers,

The "Push Button War" Myth and Wargaming

The "Push Button War" myth is the wide-spread notion that NATO superpowers win wars with the ease of pushing a button just because their arsenal is so superior.

In this forum discussion, it is hinted that the lack of challenge in Combat Mission Shock Force is that it lacks a worthy opponent with the right tools of war.

The notion that modern superpowers can win wars with little effort may have started when the first Tomahawk missiles flew from the Persian Gulf to Iraq back in 1991. Ever since then, there is this pervasive view that if a NATO superpower goes to war, it should be a short and almost blood-less affair.

There is no doubt that NATO superpowers have awesome tools of destruction. The superiority of equipment is in our favor. Every branch of the US Armed forces (except for the US Marine Corps, whom our leaders have chosen to ignore at our own peril) has the fanciest tools a professional soldier can imagine. We have the biggest guns, case closed ...

... Not!

You don't have to be a military insider to grasp how hard, tactically challenging and blood-letting is to fight modern wars.

Battle of Fallujah, almost a casualty every block of urban combat

Big fight at An-Nasiriyah during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Even friendly fire incidents!










Battle of Fallujah again, it is heart breaking to see how you can loose half a platoon in just a few blocks of urban fighting





What it has driven our armed forces into victory is not having the biggest guns but the training and prowess of our servicemen.





In this book, Stephen Biddle argues that in an armed conflict, even when one side has an edge in technology, training is the determining factor for victory and the best indicator of military power. If you have a chance to read this book, take a special peek at his war gaming of the Battle of 73 Easting.

Back to Combat Mission Shock Force, in the same way that hastily thrown together trivia doesn't help to understand a particular topic, data worshiping is not a good way to understand modern conflict.

The argument that Combat Mission Shock Force is un-challenging because the Syrians have less than stellar arsenal is way off. In real life, a war with Syria would be not a cakewalk. Combat Mission Shock Force is un-challenging because poor scenario design and other flaws in the game engine.

Is the myth of unbeatable modern NATO forces going to make war game developers shy away from designing modern conflict war games and simulations?

I hope not.

Cheers,

Are World Wars a thing of the past?

This weekend I was playing one of these wonderful Panzer Campaigns war games when I was struck (yet again) by the sheer scope of WWII in the Eastern front. Granted I was playing a tiny scenario of the Minsk 44 war game, not the greatest showdown of men and material compared to other battles in the Soviet Union. Still I was there in command of the 3rd and 48th Armies (1st Belorussian Front), and using air support from the 16th Air Army. At my command: 32590 men 1256 guns 737 vehicles and 330 planes. I say it again, this is not the biggest battle of military history. But I couldn't bring myself to think about what would be in real life to have all these resources at my disposal.



Nowadays, they speak about the so-called three block wars, low intensity conflicts and small wars. These types of conflicts appear to have been particularly frequent in the recent past ten years.

Are big wars a thing of the past?

How big is the average war, anyway?

Professional staticians prefer to speak about the frequency distribution of the values observed rather than about averages only. Everybody has heard of the bell-shaped curve of the archetypal Gaussian normal distribution (see the image at right). Is a curve where the x-axis indicates the value measured and the y-axis indicates how frequent that value was found in a population. The average is the value in the x-axis where the curve has a peak and is the most typical value found in a population.




What the frequency distribution of the sizes of wars looks like?



Back in 1960, a very smart fellow named Richardson took casualties data from wars on record and plotted them in a way similar than the one shown above. Number of casualties in the x-axis and frequency of the wars having x-casualties in the y-axis.
[Please note the word "similar". There is some mathematical geeky tricks behind the type of plot Richardson made, unfortunately these tricks are beyond the scope of this blog.]
Richardson didn't find a normal distribution for the size of wars (see the graphic at the right, taken from "Modeling the Size of Wars" by Lars-Erik Cederman). The data showed lots of small wars, fewer large ones and just two of cataclysmic size (WWII and WWI). In other words, he found that the size of wars was inversely proportional to their frequency. Also, his plot shows no peak, which means that there is not a typical size for wars.

The type of distribution shown above are so-called "power-law distributions" because the frequency decays following a power law. Power law distributions are typical of systems that self-organize into a critical state where a tiny fluctuation can trigger either an event of tremendous magnitude or just a smaller, almost non detectable one. The friction between tectonic plates is a good example of these "self-organized at a critical state" systems. The tectonic plates collide with each other, releasing energy in the form of earthquakes. The intensity of earthquakes show exactly a power law distribution.

Scientists like Cederman, have been arguing that warfare is one of those self-organized at a critical state systems. The analogy of the tectonic plates and the release of energy in the form of earthquakes is more than appealing. It also leads to the unsettling conclusion that, once the pieces are all set, there may be nothing to stop a world war.

It was 11 A.M. on a fine summer morning in Sarajevo, June 28 1914, when the driver of an automobile carrying two passengers made a wrong turn. The car was not supposed to leave the main street, and yet it did, pulling up into a narrow passageway with no escape. It was an unremarkable mistake, easy enough to make in the crowded, dusty streets. But this mistake, made on this day and by this driver, would disrupt hundreds of millions of lives, and alter the course of world history.

Mark Buchanan in "Ubiquity"

So, to answer the question in the title of this entry: there is no way to tell if humankind will endure another world war. We should expect frequent small wars, that's for sure. But we should never underestimate the power of a chauffeur's mistake ...

Cheers,

"Tank Tactics, from Normandy to Lorraine", by Roman Jarymowycz

Just finished reading this book.

"Tank Tactics, from Normandy to Lorraine", by Roman Jarymowycz is a wonderful mix of scholastic treatise on armor doctrine and engaging battlefront stories and anecdotes.

This book is about the evolution of armor doctrine among the US and Canadian forces, from the end of WWI to the trying months after the WWII Normandy landings.

This is a must read for anybody interested in armored warfare. The first chapters are devoted to the post-WWI years, and all the confusion the tank brought into military doctrine. How were tanks to be used grand-tactically, as a breaktrhough ram, as an exploitation weapon or as a pursuit one? The soul-searching of the US Cavalry with their tank vs horse debate follows, with a bit less of detail as in other books by Jarymowycz but nonetheless very informative. The meat and potatoes of the book is the analysis of Operations Goodwood, Cobra, Totalize and Tractable. The author makes great emphasis in the good and bad of the doctrines of British, Canadian, US, German and (altough very briefly) Soviet forces. Every operation is put under the microscope and analyzed from the armored warfare doctrinal point of view. I would dare to say that this is the best operational analysis of the Normandy breakthrough I ever read.

One word of caution: the title "Tank Tactics" is a bit off. The book makes emphasis in the grand-tactical and operational use of armor in WWII. There are a few tactical vignettes here and there. But don't expect to see too much small units tactics here.

On a side note: This book has been available from Lynne-Rienner Publishers for a long time. Now Stackpole Books prints and sells it at a lower price. Kudos Stackpole for getting us this wonderful scholarly treatise at such a knockout price.

This book has given me an itch for some WWII Normandy war-gaming ...




Do you recognize this war game?


HPS's Normandy 44








What about this classic?


Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord




I'm off to play these great war games.

Cheers,

USMC to Open Military Academies Across the US

This morning, the Army Times published an article about the US Marine Corps leading a movement to open military academies across the country and how they are talking to civilian education district leaders to combine efforts to do so.

The Marine Corps is wooing public school districts across the country, expanding a network of military academies that has grown steadily despite criticism that it’s a recruiting ploy.

The US Marine Corps leading some innovation. Nothing new here, move on. Sometimes it appears that the USMC are they guys with the bigger fire in their feet when it comes to attitudes of change. I'm not surprised, but kudos anyway.

And then, off course, the backlash.

In DeKalb County, which includes part of Atlanta, protests by parents and threats of lawsuits began almost as soon as the school board announced last year that it planned to open a Marine Corps high school. The district wanted to open it this fall, but the approval process in Washington has delayed that. The district hopes to open the school in fall 2010.

Critics like Mike Hearington, a 56-year-old Vietnam War veteran whose son attends Shamrock Middle School in DeKalb County, say the schools are breeding grounds for the military.

“To pursue children like they are is criminal in my mind,” Hearington said.

Some degree of controversy is always good. Good debate about something new has to be a given.
But what worries me is that the the detractors are using language that reflects something beyond the mere fear of some day seeing our sons go into harms way.

"Breeding grounds for the military"? This sounds like something sinister will come out from the proposed academies. Like potential recruits. The horror!

“To pursue children like they are is criminal in my mind ...”. We indoctrinate our children in lots of things way before they can make rational decisions by their own. None of these indoctrinations are considered "criminal". Thus, if indoctrination per se is not criminal, is the word "criminal" used here implying that eventually becoming recruits and later waging the wars of our country is somehow "criminal"?

In his book "The Culture of War", van Creveld wrote:

... in today's self-styled "advanced" countries, for the culture of war to be held in such high esteem is rare. Soldiers, war gamers, collectors of militaria, and even military historians know the score. At best, their culture is seen as a quaint leftover from a previous, presumably less rational, less utilitarian, and less humane past. At worst, it is denied, put aside, ignored, ridiculed, or denounced as childish "warmongering".

The dangers of embracing opposition to anything military are only to be known when our enemies are too close to the gates of our cities.

Cheers,

"The Most Dangerous Animal: Human Nature and the Origins of War"

Every human in earth knows wars as catastrophic events. Why we humans engage in them anyways?

This fantastic book by Dr. David Livingstone Smith offers a somber hypothesis from the perspective of evolution, anthropology and psychology: evolution may have shaped our human brains in that way.

According to the author we have a strong and intrinsic disgust for killing each other, yet through evolution the brains of our ancestors have acquired the trait of being able to deceit others and even ourselves. Surprisingly, this self-deceit process appears to be even unconscious. Add to that our ability to imagine threats and the list of ingredients for the recipe of the "Most Dangerous Animal" is almost complete.

To explore the possible roots of our same-species violent behavior and to find an explanation to it, this book will take you back and forth in time and space, from a cave millions of years ago to present day Iraq. Well documented, accessible to the lay reader, this is book written in an engaging style.

A small warning: this book is not a light reading neither it has a happy ending. The vignettes of wars and other violent acts are very graphic and quickly brings the point to you that we tend to sanitize, romanticize and glorify war. The book wraps it up with a final chapter explaining why, alas, there is apparently no end in sight for the terrible custom of war.

Cheers,

"No Enemy, but Peace", a Comic About Real Heroes

This has to be my oddest find ever. In a comics store I found a comic written by a US Marine about a real-life story of heroism and courage during the battle of At-Tarmiyah.

Very good reading and illustrations. You immediately note that the author knows what he is writing about.

There is a more extensive comic coming out in the near future.

Please support this small operation by buying the comic here.

Cheers,

FM 3-24.2 Tactics in Counterinsurgency

After being published and quickly taken off from the US Army Combined Arms Center last April, copies of the manual appeared in several blogs and websites.

Now it is available from the "Small Wars Journal" website.

It is very exciting to witness doctrine in the making.

The field manual is 300 pages long and I'm still reading it. Two stray thoughts about it:

• From the point of view of employing armed forces to kill insurgents/enemy combatants the US Army never suffered major tactical defeats in the recent past. This field manual not only revises the employment of troops for the destruction of enemy combatants/insurgents but also integrates such activity with wining the hearts and minds of the civil population and preserving the civilian infrastructure. This is not a trivial thing.
• Some parts are really eye catchers. Like this passage in section 5.2 (Characteristics of the Offense):

  The characteristics of the offense are surprise, audacity, tempo, and concentration. For COIN, an additional characteristic, flexibility, is added.

Wait a minute, I thought that flexibility was always a part of the offense ... :)

• Some other parts are surprising, at least to me. Like when the manual lists the types of offensive operations, one of them is "movement to contact", which includes search-and-attack and cordon-and-search operations. In my understanding, the greatest problem in battling insurgencies is that the enemy combatants always have the choice of when and where to show up. Movement to contact may be a bit too optimistic IMHO. But the actual surprise to me is that in the manual there is a mention of using reconnaissance forces to find the insurgents. Regular recce units?
  

Cheers,

Contemporary Military Thinkers: Martin van Creveld

Dr. van Creveld's contributions to the study of human conflict cover a wide range of military and political matters.

His most-recognized books, "The Transformation of War" and "Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton", are included in the US Army Officer's required reading list.

Showing an amazing erudition in military history, van Creveld puts forward not only new and exciting ideas on how to analyze the historical facts, but also his view on how previous analysis need revision. Not even the mighty Clausewitz escapes from scrutiny.

One of his books I think is under-rated in popularity and importance. In "The Rise and Decline of the State", van Creveld proposes that the sovereign state as we know it in modern societies has outlived his usefulness. "The Rise and Decline of the State" is one of those books that shakes your axioms to the core.

His latest book "The Culture of War", is in my night stand waiting to join the other books from this author in an special section of my bookshelf reserved for the books I consult the most.

Cheers,