Act of Valor -- Tactics

--Italian National Fascist Party flag

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright
and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing
--Minivar Cheevy,
Edward Arlington Robinson

You couldn't force people,
you could only kill people,
that was the only thing
you could force on them.
--Adam and the Train,
Heinrich Boll

Well, the Lone Ranger and Tonto
They are ridin' down the line
Fixin' ev'rybody's troubles
Ev'rybody's 'cept mine
--Bob Dylan's Blues, Bob Dylan
__________________

Act of Valor II: Tactics

This is not your Variety review --

Ranger would simply say the film is "trite", but will explain why that is so.

The operation to save the CIA agent is phased, which is extremely difficult both to plan and execute because it requires disparate units to congregate at the appointed place and time.

The SEAL team helos in, sans oxygen until seconds before exit. They jumped with no gear, but had LAWs, commo and plenty of weapons and ammunition when they hit the ground.

The approach march formations were bunched up, and they approached from the opposite side of the river, leaving the sniper team on the far bank isolated from the assault element by a body of water with no rear security. Imagine attacking a camp on a river from the river side; this a backwards since you want to push/block the enemy with the water obstacle.

Also, there was no far security sealing the high speed avenues of approach. The team lacked 40 mm grenade launchers and used only hand grenades.

Miraculously, the sniper team resurfaces in Ghillie suits, which does not make sense since these are used to help isolated snipers avoid detection. This team was instead covering an assault team and were anything but isolated or secret.

The snipers only took head shots, except one shoots a guard through the chest; the director probably tired of seeing heads exploding like pumpkins.

There were no machine guns to cover the withdrawal phase of the raid/assault. No claymores or explosives for the blocking of motorized reaction forces responding to the event. The team did no long-term surveillance of the target area.

The team's time on target gave the opposition forces enough time to kill the hostage, but this did not happen, again defying logic. Next is movement to the Objective Rally Point (ORP), of which this team had designated three! This is unheard of.

In the execution phase, the ORP was not properly secured. During the execution assault phase there were no friendlies for security, nor did the team employ explosives to destroy the target after the assault.

But continuing with the unreality, the SEAL's stolen vehicle was impervious to AK rounds. No explanation on how the sniper team crossed the river in their Ghillie suits. There were no weapon malfunctions, despite the fact the friendlies submerged all their weapons and ammo.

Miraculously the team links up with the boats sent to extract them in precision time -- still, no 40 mm launchers to hit the defilade targets. On one gun turret there was a death's head, and one air crew member had "In God We Trust" on his helmet.

Why did the SEAL team take no prisoners? A live hostage is an intelligence boon, far better than a found cell phone.

Where was the corpsman during the action? He may have been present but his medical kit was never shown. Maybe he was busy killing people.


The Bad Guys: They had no inner or outer security to speak of -- no roving patrols, no tanglefoot or pressure-detonated mines. Strange that violent men would take such a casual defensive posture, especially with such a high-value hostage. We are to believe they are good enough to snatch her, but not professional enough to protect their prize.


Summation: The team leaders likens the team to twigs tied in a bundle in order to make each stick stronger. This, of course, is a fascicle, from which the word "fascist" comes.

This film was "300", with modern doo-dads. A of V is also like a modern Don Quixote. The SEALs didn't ride broken down horses or wear old armor, but their warrior philosophy was not in tune with modern standards. The SEALs are Quixote riding $4 Billion nuclear subs and $62 Million special operations helos.

But it doesn't matter what you ride, when you are tilting at windmills.