Insurgent tactics - Assault on outpost

[Moose-Knuckle]

I've got zero military experience to back up my opinion but some of these Afghanis have been fighting with or against the best-trained military units of the two most powerful nations on the planet for thirty-five ****ing years.

I'm guessing they've picked up a trick or two.

I posted this recently in another thread when Afghan fighters were mentioned and it applies here:

Uneducated? I concur that Afghans for the most part do not have cookie cutter HS diplomas and degrees from their local community college but they have been fighting wars for a very long time. In the First Anglo-Afghan War they fought the British Empire and the East India Trading Company (think Blackwater in the 19th Century), in the Second Anglo-Afghan War they fought the British empire and their ally India, in the Third Anglo-Afghan War they again fought the British empire and India, less than a hundred years later they fought the Soviet Union for a decade, after that they had four different civil wars between 1989-2001, and then course they have been fighting with the US and our allies ever since.

So in summary these people have been fighting wars for the last two centuries; against the world's greatest Super Powers and amongst themselves.

[Safetyhit]

SOW_0331 all of your observations are sound, but everything you elaborated above essentially confirms that the attack was nothing special simply because the target was so weak. Yes there was a decent degree of coordination and execution but still the reality of what we saw was the equivalent of taking candy from a baby.

And while I could have chosen my words a bit more carefully it's unfortunate to see the interpretations that I see all insurgents as nothing and easy to defeat. Everything I've said here is a big picture type of comment, not a casual dismissal of those that are willing to fight to the death for what they believe in and have been doing so for a long time. The issue from my humble viewpoint is that in the long run these guys always lose when confronted with a direct force. Obviously example "A" would be the Iraqi armed forces but there are other less conspicuous ones out there.

Lastly about the "sneaky rats", from the perspective of many westerners that is exactly what they are no matter how much courage and capability they may have. They are willing to fight forever for things that are regarded as absurd in our society and are seemingly always doing so on the down low in the shadows. If they are so noble then where is their adequate organization beyond being able to take on small and nearly undefended targets worldwide?

[sinister]

Basics of both guerrilla and conventional warfare.

No military (or paramilitary) force starts out with raw recruits executing complex coordinated attacks. Crawl-walk-run involves chalk-talk, lecture, sand-table walk-talk through, cadre-led patrols, then confidence targets of increasing complexity.

Hajjis who fought the Russians in the 80s are not the mass first-line troops hired within the last ten years. Kids in the US Army are not necessarily the same dudes who crossed the line to execute shock-and-awe or Tora Bora.

The quality of the trainers at the NCO level makes the super-critical difference, no matter whose force.

If, as an entry-level Soldier, you've never, ever walked-through an exercise scenario saying "Bang-bang-bang" or shooting blanks then you're the world's baddest Mo-Fo and we need to take notes from you. You're a born killer.

[Failure2Stop]

Basics of both guerrilla and conventional warfare.

No military (or paramilitary) force starts out with raw recruits executing complex coordinated attacks. Crawl-walk-run involves chalk-talk, lecture, sand-table walk-talk through, cadre-led patrols, then confidence targets of increasing complexity.

Hajjis who fought the Russians in the 80s are not the mass first-line troops hired within the last ten years. Kids in the US Army are not necessarily the same dudes who crossed the line to execute shock-and-awe or Tora Bora.

The quality of the trainers at the NCO level makes the super-critical difference, no matter whose force.

/thread

[SteveS]

I've got zero military experience to back up my opinion but some of these Afghanis have been fighting with or against the best-trained military units of the two most powerful nations on the planet for thirty-five ****ing years.

I'm guessing they've picked up a trick or two.

History has proven outcome for military action results in Afghanistan. They don't have the song 1,2,3,4 what are we fighting for.

[Arctic1]

Lastly about the "sneaky rats", from the perspective of many westerners that is exactly what they are no matter how much courage and capability they may have. They are willing to fight forever for things that are regarded as absurd in our society and are seemingly always doing so on the down low in the shadows. If they are so noble then where is their adequate organization beyond being able to take on small and nearly undefended targets worldwide?

I am not sure if this really pertains to the discussion, but I have not seen anyone claim that they are noble.

Acknowledging that the enemy is capable, and respecting their capabilities is not the same as respecting or acknowledging why they fight.....

[grunz]

We will be seeing many more first person POV combat videos like this in the future since small wearable cameras are so easily available to everyone.

[Koshinn]

Lastly about the "sneaky rats", from the perspective of many westerners that is exactly what they are no matter how much courage and capability they may have. They are willing to fight forever for things that are regarded as absurd in our society and are seemingly always doing so on the down low in the shadows. If they are so noble then where is their adequate organization beyond being able to take on small and nearly undefended targets worldwide?

So are we. When you fight, you fight to win. We make it doctrine to engage only with an overwhelming numerical advantage. We use stealth aircraft so the enemy doesn't have a sporting chance. Hell, using aircraft in the first place against people living in caves and mud buildings doesn't seem very high on the list of courageous things to do. We attack at night with NODs while using IR lasers and plastering IR reflective patches all over ourselves because we know the enemy can't see at night nor in the near-infrared spectrum, but we can.

And after all of that overwhelming use of money to buy personal equipment, vehicles, FOBs/COPs, more troops, and air support, they still come after us with everything they've got. To them, we're attacking their religion and their home. We've killed their brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers, whether they were combatants or not, and often unintentionally. They have good reasons to fight, and they're not doing a horrible job at it given the herculean task. Underestimating them is not wise.

However, I still don't agree with them.

We will be seeing many more first person POV combat videos like this in the future since small wearable cameras are so easily available to everyone.

They should have ended the video with the goPro logo.

[DragonDoc]

A few points on what is shown of their capabilities:

-Reconnaissance of objective prior to attack
-Dress rehearsal/dry run
-Use of sand table for dry run
-Putting effective fire on visible and likely targets (as opposed to blind firing on FA)
-Adequate room clearing techniques
-Surprise and violence of action
-Conducted SSE once objective was taken
-Executed according to plan, and kept momentum up, overran the objective as a coherent unit staying in formation
-Proper CASEVAC plan

It shows a certain degree of professionalism/competence, that contrasts what many people think of wrt these groups - often regarded as clueless, lacking in training, inferior and as you your self stated, won't stand and fight.

I agree that the video also shows what will happen if your security is piss poor.

One member commented that "they don't aim and just shoot wildly into random places where they believe people to be". I ask you to note the first guard that is killed, he is gunned down from a moving vehicle while he himself is moving.

Guess I could have expounded a bit in my first post, rather than the four key words I used to try to get my point across (planning, reconnaissance, dry runs and execution).

I was going to point out the same things. This group seems to have a working knowledge of the MDMP and how to implement it. They obviously gathered accurate and useful intelligence to answer the CCIR. They rehearsed their plan then executed it. They also had trained medical personnel that were able to stop bleeding and start IVs to treat for shock. Then they executed their CASEVAC plan. The level of sophistry these guys used should make everyone wary of their abilities. We aren't up in arms because these guys are in the Middle East. Consider this. How hard would it be to smuggle two squads of these guys into the U.S. so they can hit a soft target like a mall?

[ClearedHot]

Team Organization - This attack would have failed if there had been competent leadership properly utilizing numbers. If there had been a team or small element running interference, they may have been killed, but those PKMs would have destroyed that truck long before the fighters could jump out. I have the name of a friend of mine tattooed on my chest, he stood in front of a dump truck and went cyclic with his SAW, forcing an asshole to prematurely detonate his SVBIED. Had him and another Marine not been out there keeping an active blocking position, a platoon of Marines would have been vaporized. Once you set up a forward element you leave it in place. They don't return to the common area to be relieved, their relief goes to them.

Was your buddy Lcpl. Haerter, KIA 2008 in Ramadi ?