People don’t talk like this in the military. You’re never doing something ‘at all costs’. First you’re always bound by the laws of armed conflict, and second you always want to give yourself the mental option of backing out and achieving your objective another way. The town is a means to another end. If you expend all your resources getting the town and have nothing left for the actual objective then you’ve achieved nothing.
As a non-combatant with zero knowledge of military tactics, I'm glad you mention this. I stumbled over this phrase and it made me feel like it was specifically worded to catch unaware participants to the game.
Glad to see 'at all costs' isn't a thing in the military.
I read about this in the context of the Vietnam War. All sides -- the US included! -- wanted to cause casualties on the enemy that would require medical assistance. Some weapons were even designed to hurt the rescuers.
The GP isn't "anonymous", he's a relatively well known field grade officer in the British military who has posted about his experiences publicly before.
(preamble: I know nothing about how armies operate) I remember reading something about "protection of the force" regarding US military operations in 2000's Iraq and I remember something along the line of "we put a lot of resources in protection of the column we send for missions or the patrol", and there was criticism that there was too much emphasis on protection and that was what led in parts to Blackwater [0] sub contractings, so that the force stays safe, and difficulties in getting some objectives done. Hearsays from news outlets from that time though so I really don't know if it has any truth in it.
[0] Which makes me think: if anyone has any articles that explain the difference between groups like Blackwater and the russian Wagner group I'd be grateful.
For a while they were mostly just staying on the bases while giving the insurgents free range to roam around and attack convoys which primarily consisted of unarmored vehicles.
The last time I was over there in ‘04 they were more proactive after some reservists refused to go out on convoys because it was too unsafe. Bad for recruiting I guess. They used us as bait one night because they were trying to find a Russian anti-aircraft gun they were shooting at convoys with, didn’t find the gun but we did find out they were now setting up two kill zone ambushes because if a convoy got hit they’d stop a kilometer or so up the road to regroup but they were shitty shots and set off the secondary ambush before anyone was stopped so fucked the whole thing up. Frickin’ amateurs…
The only blackwater folks I talked to were doing VIP escort duty but a lot of the support rolls were civilians, I was a non-combatant truck driver running all over the country in ‘04.
Blackwater was a bit different from most of the other contractors since they were working for State vs. DOD (along with Triple Canopy and DynCorp) and had tasking which was directly in support of case officers going out meeting with agents (and often in Afghanistan and possibly Iraq they actually did the CIA mission for them), rather than escorting the case officer to do it... Blackwater and all the companies had outdated TTP in 2003/2004/2005/2006-ish but at least Blackwater had pretty solid personnel in 2003/2004/2005 (former special ops or at least high-end combat arms guys) due to high salaries, vs. later where day rate got down to the point that a lot of firms were hiring former prison guards, bouncers, etc.
I was running mostly low-profile in 2004 (old soft BMW sedans, local dress, local security forces, locally sourced weapons) and it was...interesting. Honestly more afraid of getting lit up by US forces or other contractors than insurgents, although due to our soft skinned vehicles and relatively light weapons, if we got discovered by insurgents enroute we would not get kidnapped but would probably not do very well if we didn't gtfo within the initial few seconds of engagement. Almost got into a bad situation a few days after arriving. Minivan with two Americans with Hi-Powers, two Kurds with AKs, vs. a PKM, ~6 guys with AKs, and 3 trucks, stopped and boxed in, would have been at least not a kidnapping.
Why do you want to secure the airfield? You will have a second-order intent behind that tactical action. If your costs in achieving the tactical action mean that you aren't able to achieve the underlying intent then you've failed.
For example if you secure the airfield but basically destroy it in the process, and the whole reason to secure it was to use it, then you've done it at 'at all costs' but it was pointless.
Or for example if you want to secure it in order to reassure the local population, but terrorise them in the process, then again you've secured it 'at all costs' but the costs mean it's been a net-negative.
Military thinking means always working on at least second-order thinking, not tunnel visioning on the immediate objective. 'At all costs' is classic toxic tactics.
For me (never served in the military, but ran a contracting company operating in war zones for 5-10 years)
1: Priorities:
(a) Secure the town at all costs (not strictly "at all costs", but I believe commander's intent is to have a base of supply, and the water source is critical). Mission success is primary here, but I'm not 100% that "secure the town" is the only way.
(e) Figure out how to accomplish mission without a fight.
(c) Minimize friendly casualties
The journalist is secondary. We would never violate laws of armed conflict, and the journalist is a grown ass man who is knowingly in the war zone, so any risk is on him. My career is secondary.
I'm uncertain there's a reason to fight the town militia. Ideally I'd go in myself with interpreter and small PSD (with a QRF ready) to negotiate with village elders and get their support. It's their town; we'd happily pay for access, and base outside the town. Maybe upgrade their water/infra too.
Town isn't where I'd want to fight from, anyway, just need to to be safe. My logistics point would be terrain based.
2) ConOps to include:
b) Approach on the road in daylight
k) Occupy hill west of town as base of fire
l) Occupy an overwatch position on the hill south of town
m) Halt a vehicle heading into town and have them escort you
(Basically, set something up overtly to suppress the town IFF it becomes hostile, and if available, conduct surveillance/recon of the town before entry, but then go in overtly and without much drama.)
Apparently that was the secondary option "chosen by a significant minority of experts, particularly those with Special Forces experience."
I read through, and I (someone with no military experience) came to a pretty much identical conclusion. No point fighting if the objective can be secured with diplomacy. Granted, you always have to be ready for a fight, so having overwatch is paramount. But yeah, going for a hearts and minds approach seems the most sensible way of completing the objective with a minimum of fuss, given the situation presented.
Same here. The tactical options feel like a red herring: because up front the big detail is that the town, and the militia, are not necessarily hostile - though individual members might be. So top priority really is avoiding a fight at all: particularly because your only long range options (the mortars) are going to wipe the town out entirely, and likely lead to having to fight door to door through the two objective structures in the first place.
The first proposed solution would make much more sense if you actually had overwhelming force for an assault - however, if you've got a hundred or so fighters and the potential opposition is "between 200-250 strong" among 2000 civilians, then no matter what victory-enabling superiority you may have, winning a firefight like that won't minimize friendly casualties or "collateral damage", which were the stated goal of all the experts, so you fail at your goals even if you win the fight.
If you have the exact same scenario but for a smaller oasis with five times less population and militia (but you still having the full company), then the conclusions would be different.
Even if you have overwhelming force there can still be casualties, especially if the local militia are slow to realize the fight is hopeless. Which can happen, especially if you take them by surprise. The locals will surely take casualties.
With zero casualties for the occupying force, this may still be a negative result. Now you've made enemies of the locals, and the word will spread. Assuming your goal is not to become an oppressor you may have hurt your cause by going gung-ho into the village, even if tactically you succeeded.
They don’t say if the local militia is hostile in general or just if you try to seize their water source.
Which, IMHO, is very critical information to know.
One way you could just roll into town, toss the kids some MREs, and tell the townsfolk your mission is to secure the water supply from the enemy and what do they need because they probably have supply issues and really do need stuff.
Option B is to have one platoon plus mortars and heavy weapons set up a base of fire while the other two platoons conduct an unmounted assault.
That’s how the paratroopers would do it at least.
Like the first gulf war, we were attached to a French armored battalion and they didn’t roll up on the Iraqis guns blazing but gave them a chance to surrender which they happily did. I mean, if anyone knows about surrendering…
—edit—
Oh, I forgot about the size of the local militia.
Assaulting a fortified position with that many defenders is at the very least a battalion sized operation especially in an urban environment. And you’re going to take a lot of casualties. Sending a company to do it is virtually impossible if they want to fight.
> They don’t say if the local militia is hostile in general or just if you try to seize their water source. [...] Which, IMHO, is very critical information to know.
I think the point of the exercise is to see what your assumptions are. They ask for your decisions and assumptions. If it's all spelled out for you, what's the point of the challenge?
They do say this about the milita (quoting verbatim):
- "The local population is of the same ethnic group as both the enemy and the host nation."
- "From experience, you know that each oasis has a small militia force consisting of the adult males of the settlement [...] the fighting skills of these outfits vary greatly but most will fight tenaciously to defend their homes and crops."
I think the last sentence emphasizes that if you choose to use force, you are in for tenacious resistance and casualties are to be expected. They'll defend their village if they feel threatened. I think this is all you need to know in order to base your assumptions for this wargaming exercise. In fact, this is what the second group, the people with special forces experience, based their answers on.
The way I read the article, military people without special forces training usually choose a tactically sound plan that will almost certainly result in casualties on at least one side.
> We first presented this scenario before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when most military officers were thinking in terms of conventional combat [seizing the town]. We suspect that after two decades of irregular warfare, the minority approach described here [of negotiating with local leaders] might be more prevalent today.
Most games only let players do the former: shoot till the enemy HP is depleted. Would love to see more development along the second path that isn't just dialog trees: where the enemy's morale is depleted.
Do note in option B of this scenario there are no enemies and nobody's morale gets depleted. The commander makes choices so as to avoid turning local villagers into enemies.
I would totally like to see this kind of scenarios in "consumer" wargames, and I totally agree with you they are disappointingly about depleting hitpoints or whatever. They are shooters (or their RTS equivalents) rather than thinking wargames.
They do explain why you're securing this objective: you are providing security for a mobile logistics force, which needs to secure Oasis because:
> "[...] the logistics commander plans to move in that direction and establish a forward supply point at Oasis, some 40 kilometers north but still several kilometers south of the front"
Making assumptions about the town's disposition is part of the challenge; if they spelled it out for you, then what's the point? These are the data points they give you:
- "Irregular enemy forces mounted on small trucks and equipped with heavy machine guns are known to operate in the area."
- "The local population is of the same ethnic group as both the enemy and the host nation."
- "From experience, you know that each oasis has a small militia force consisting of the adult males of the settlement [...] the fighting skills of these outfits vary greatly but most will fight tenaciously to defend their homes and crops."
You don't need to know anything else in order to think some assumptions and create a corresponding plan.
Okay, missing the objective in my quick read-though is on me.
Still, the only real answer to this is: "Gather intelligence on the disposition of Oasis. If hostile, establish order of battle and engage. Otherwise, establish friendly relations and secure in cooperation with local leadership."
Immediately jumping to combat is how you get more insurgents, not less.
> Immediately jumping to combat is how you get more insurgents, not less.
Totally agreed, and in fact if you read the opinion of the experts (at the end of the exercise), the minority group comprised of people with Special Forces experience agreed with you.
People don’t talk like this in the military. You’re never doing something ‘at all costs’. First you’re always bound by the laws of armed conflict, and second you always want to give yourself the mental option of backing out and achieving your objective another way. The town is a means to another end. If you expend all your resources getting the town and have nothing left for the actual objective then you’ve achieved nothing.
But if you like this kind of problem - it’s the same format as the entrance tests for the British Army https://bootcampmilitaryfitnessinstitute.com/wp-content/uplo... but they do it without the multiple choice.