slapphead_otool

The public watches Mash, or plays Call of Duty, and suddenly they are experts.

Funny how it seems different in 45 degrees in elephant grass, when you haven’t slept for 48 hours, or showered for 2 weeks. Your sweat soaks the map, your compass jiggles all over the place, the radio doesn’t work and you have lost sight of the guy in front of you.

Interesting that you mention dancing though. I have always thought drill to be very similar to dancing, count the beat, Hup, two three four, down , two three four etc.

kporte

There are plenty less peaty malts but I like a blend too on occasion. Look out for the attached one, it is very reasonably priced and quite superb.

Burbage

But that's the cannon-fodder, not the people who count.

BadgeIsBack

People think soldiering is always about engaging - they fail to appreciate the skills around just living in the field - for example, they ask you 'how many grenades you are allowed to have' - and how 'many rifles you can choose from'. They think it is all Predator and Commando. War movies never show the real weight of the packs, or people cooking tactically - assuming that is possible of course.

It doesn't always occur to them that even the very best soldiers are just people who do a lot of training. They think all troopers are all supermen. Not really - just blokes who have that bit more focus who have trained hard and maintained that skill - and have the personality fit to work in small teams who stuff up too from time to time, trip up going through doors and make fools of themselves(!)

slapphead_otool

You mean politicians?

BadgeIsBack

Everyone counts at some point. Because you have to rely on the common denominator.

Actually - talk of cannon fodder and the common denominator - reminds me of many British Expats infact. They think migration is all about dolphins and houses, or supermarket prices. The devil is in the detail and there is more going on.

BadgeIsBack

Bit of that - but dance (apparently - certainly!) is much more creative, and expressive even if the steps and the cohesion are the same skill initially. It's drill++.

Bit of a computer joke there, eh.

ABCDiamond

You talking about politicians too ?

Burbage

The common denominator... The common detonator you mean. Boom!

You can't figure out who the enemy are and where they are and how big their guns are until you send someone out there for them to shoot at. Then you either buy them off, destroy them with big bombs, or ignore them.

As for training, well, you have to do something with them when there's no war on.

How did this get into a discussion about financial crises?

BadgeIsBack

No idea!

your post is mildly amusing but is typical of the non-schooled person in military operations(if I may so) who fudges all the terminology and procedures. Not you personally.

There is the concept of gaining intelligence by proxy of course - in relative safety. There are too many to count.

Tactically, and even strategically, there is also the concept of recce patrols who do not aim to be discovered or shot at - ideally. I stress ideally....(!)
Look at the work done by patrols on West (and East) Falkland.

One such patrol in the Gulf became the subject of a best seller...(although they had an active role tasking too - I forget!)

Burbage

The trouble with schooling in military operations is that the people that do it by the book have forgotten that the other side has the book too.

But you still need cannon fodder.

BadgeIsBack

Maybe - but the books vary of course! And not everyone uses the book all the time. The Soviet book was different to the NATO one in many ways - and yes, was very doctrinal and 'by the book'. Infact it was a bit of a weakness.

Books are jumping-off points - it's like any other art.

slapphead_otool

Infantry minor tactics are like a dance, both sides know the rules, the one who performs the steps the best wins.

It’s a simple process, I can explain it in a pew paragraphs id you really want to know about triangulated warfare….


Here you go, from somethng I wrote years ago:

An army thinks in threes. Its not an accident that there are three sections to a Platoon. Its all to do with "Triangulated Warfare".

Early generations of warfare were linear. Armies lined up, marched together and beat the crap out of each other. Two straight lines. Armies prided themselves upon the straightness of the lines. They still do when you stand on a parade ground.

The advent of rifles and mounted cavalry changed all of that. If the enemy could get behind the line then things could get very sticky indeed. Bad enough that some guy in front of you was trying to kill you, but your concentration was broken when his mate popped up over your shoulder with a mean look in his eye.

To put a bit of reassurance into things armies began forming squares. Behind you, covering your backside, was another group of your mates. The British army were masters at this. An average British square was huge. Three ranks of a hundred men each, on each side of a square. 1200 men, long bayonets on the end of long rifles, formed a massive porcupine. The dead and dying were dragged into the middle (this now the parade ground “square”, and the reason it is revered.

When machine guns appeared (the Gattling gun) they were placed on the corners, firing diagonally across the frontage. Anyone advancing on the square had to walk through its wall of fire.

The problem was the squares were huge, unwieldy, and the closely packed soldiers were hammered by artillery fire. Once the guns ranged onto the square they simply walked the fire up and down decimating it.

The answer was the smaller triangle that we use today. A triangle has the smallest number of corners to an enclosed space. Put a machine gun on each corner and you have a defended zone.

Three sections in the Platoon each adopt a defensive position approximately 250m apart. The ground within the triangle is the held ground. Each corner of the triangle is held by the fire group (with assault rifles) and the gun group (with two section machine guns). Only the corners are manned. Instead of a thousand soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder, the line is held by enfilade fire from the machine guns. The fire group protects the guns from an assault, and each pair of guns fires in a clockwise direction around the perimeter.

It is much harder for artillery to hit the dug in machine guns. No soldiers stand out in the open. The area is as large as the squares of old, but are held with 40 times fewer men.

This is why a Platoon consists of three sections. Triangulated Warfare.

On a grander scale, a company consists of three infantry Platoons (together with a Support section). The same logic applies. Three Platoons (each laid out in thee defensive triangles) occupy a massive defensive triangle, each providing mutual supporting fire to the other. To overcome the larger frontage distances of a Company triangle, each platoon has a pair of massive sustained fire machine guns with an effective range approaching a kilometer.

An assault is simply a moving version of the defensive triangle. Moving one point at a time the triangle is “walked” forward, until the enemy finds itself being enveloped in fire from the machine guns firing along the sides of the triangle.
If the actual position of the enemy is known the advance is “two up”. The frontage line of the triangle is pushed to the enemy pace by pace.

If you don’t know where the enemy is, the assault is one up, a forward “corner” of the triangle advances, with the other two corners moving up. If the forward corner is attacked from the left or right the triangle can be swung to present the frontage line to the enemy.

When the enemy is located the left hand platoon or section moves almost flanking to them. The gun group pours suppressive fire onto the enemy position, from the enemies left hand side. This tends to worry people, they look at where the fire comes from, and keep their heads low.

At the same time the right hand section or platoon moves diagonally towards the enemy position, in a pincer movement. The enemy is under attack from two sides. And the third leg of the triangle fire directly to the front, further dislocating the enemy. As the right hand group moves forward it moves into a fast fire and maneuver formation. One part firing to cover the movement of the other. The enemy is under fire from three sides.

As the right hand group close with them the other groups cease fire, and it becomes a struggle of death. Assault rifles, capable of automatic fire or single shots, grenades and bayonets are used in close quarter combat. In the end it becomes a bar room brawl with guns and knives. If the right hand group loses more than about 30% of its men to injury or death, the rear centre section moves forward in a direct frontal assault.

As soon as the position is taken, the living victors reorg on the position. They are at their most vulnerable. They will have low ammunition, casualties, they will be tired and shocked. They quickly reform as a triangle around the objective, and prepare to defend any attempt to retake it.

BadgeIsBack

Just a thought - of course - the issue now is that we are up to our necks in counter-insurgency etc..my first example went out with the start of the 1990s..

I never had any issue understanding the dance of minor infantry tactics, or even tactics at battallion, brigade or divisional level (NATO and Soviet)- but what was harder was getting and understanding why, let alone how, your 'enemy' chooses to do what he does. And who is he?

Who is that bloke shooting at me in Iraq (etc), where does he come from, and why does he bother? I remember looking at the Bosnia situation in the early 90s from the safe haven of the planning rooms - I was younger then and remember feeling very confused and initially overwhelmed. So you've told me; but I still don't understand. Cultural relativity etc...

slapphead_otool

Indeed, we are new embroiled in 3 block 4th Generation asymmetric warfare.

People pick up a weapon, fire a shot, throw it down and say – Hey, I’m a civilian, you cant shoot at me.

Children carry guns that are just as deadly in their hands as in an adults.

Commanders escape in ambulances, using Geneva Convention protection as the relocate to a new position (this happened in Fallujah, and is a common tactic).

“Doctors” appear on Al Jazirah, wearing white coats and talking about injuries to children. No one at the hospital recognizes them, and they vanish after the press interview, but the 30 second grab is out, and your soldiers are child killers in the public eye.

To be honest I support the Hitler approach. If someone fires a shot, flatten a village. Round up 20 local dignitaries and shoot the f***ers. If someone gives a interview from a hospital, bomb it flat.

Asymmetric warfare only works when we follow rues and they don’t.