A PROPOSAL HOW TO COUNTER THE NEW TACTICS OF THE INSURGENTS

[kotzabasis]

A PROPOSAL HOW TO COUNTER THE NEW TACTICS
OF THE INSURGENTS

Con George-Kotzabasis


If one cannot calculate the probability of an outcome, one should simply do what history and honor teaches is right. Winston Churchill

Dear Soldier,

It seems that the insurgents in countering the “surge” are evolving new tactics that increase to an unsustainable level the number of casualties that your forces are enduring that jeopardize, both militarily and politically, the success of the new American strategy under general Petraeus. It appears to me, that unless your new strategy gestates quickly novel tactics that would check, if not nullify completely, the tactics of the insurgents, US forces on the ground will be engaged in a mountainous struggle with a continued heavy toll of casualties in your attempt to reach your admirable and courageous goal. And the corollary of the greater difficulties you will be confronting on the foreground of war is you will not be getting any succor or understanding from the background of politics. As an already weak-kneed Congress will readily throw the towel using as an excuse these heavy casualties, and hence depriving general Petraeus and his brave soldiers the laurels of victory.

Ostensibly, a new tactic of the insurgents is to attack your forces in one mini-theatre of operations with the expectation that your commanders from this theatre will be calling for reinforcements; and whilst the latter are en route to ambush them by another group of insurgents lurking on the side roads, and attacking these forces by direct firepower and roadside bombs. It’s necessary therefore, in my opinion, to deprive the insurgents of this initiative to ambush your reinforcements that depends on the predictability of your reactions. Hence, the first thing you must do is to make your reactions unpredictable, to make the movement of your forces as to the route they are going to traverse hard to predict.

The implementation of this new tactic will entail the following: the vehicles that transport your troops to these mini-theatres or to other kinetic operations must not always traverse the main roads and highways where the roadside bombs are planted and where the insurgents are ambushing your forces, but instead use the rougher but safer terrain of the sides of the roads and highways which will be free from roadside bombs and ambushes. And by doing this you will not be setting up a pattern for the movement of your troops to which the insurgents would adopt their tactics. Since the expanse of the sides of the roads is by far wider than the latter, you will be using the segments of this expanse at your own interchangeable discretion. In the unlikely case that the insurgents will be so stupid—although stupidity is the twin of fanaticism—as to attempt to ambush you in such a militarily disadvantageous terrain for them, you will be able to annihilate them by using your firepower relentlessly both from the ground and the air without the normal limits that arise from the concern of inflicting collateral damage on civilians.

Further, you should consider other vehicles for the transportation and mobility of your troops in an environment where humvees and other bulky carriers are easy targets for the insurgents. It’s four years ago that I suggested, to no avail. that a better, and by far safer, mobility for your troops in such an environment would be motorcycles. Whose smallness and speed and their operational functionality to travel both on smooth and rough grounds would make them hard for the insurgents to target. Moreover, if they were equipped with rocket launches they would be a highly mobile and effective armor in conditions of urban warfare. And by moving speedily and separated by a distance from each other their riders would not be targeted as a group by the insurgents, either by roadside bombs or by direct firepower.

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Originally Posted by kotzabasis

motorcycles. equipped with rocket launches they would be a highly mobile and effective armor in conditions of urban warfare. And by moving speedily and separated by a distance from each other their riders would not be targeted as a group by the insurgents, either by roadside bombs or by direct firepower.

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero

Very interesting. Seen too many Chuck Norris movies have you? I was thinking more along the lines of armoured kangaroos with small soldiers embedded in their pouches. You could disguise the kangaroos as pigs and then swarm the insurgents from multiple avenues, they would panic at the sight of the unclean pigs and we could shoot them from the relative security of the kanga pouches as we leap over small buildings and IEDS.

[incommin]

COL Jack, that was funny; LMAO! Glad you didn't go too hard on him....

Jim

[SF18C]

I wondered how long it would take this post to get a response.

It was so "out there" that I hardly noticed that kotzabasis has only one post here…i.e. no intro post!

READY....AIM.....

[Kyobanim]

kotzabasis,

Now that you've jumped in with both feet, go back and read the rules that were sent to you and introduce yourself in the appropriate topic.

LMAO, Col.

[The Reaper]

You have got to be shitting me.

With a primary threat of IEDs, you want to put people on motorcycles? I think that your average idiot with an AK and a few greades or IEDs could make that very unpopular, very quickly.

I worry enough riding my Harley in Fayetteville every day. There is no way to shoot or communicate effectively while riding, and you are completely vulnerable to accidents, gunfire, IEDs, dogs, anti-MC devices like wires, etc.

Do you think that we do not already realize that enemy forces ambush response forces? There is nothing new about that tactic. That has been a popular tactic we have used and faced since the French and Indian Wars. I am sure that this lesson was well learned in VN. Very few of the insurgents stick around to shoot it out with US forces in Iraq any longer. Those who did are now buried there.

Rockets, on motorcycles? Are you an expert in either of these topics, or have you just seen one too many Chuck Norris movies?

This has got to be one of the most ludicrous suggestions and theses I have ever heard.

Never mind your failure to follow instructions and introduce yourself in the proper place.

TR