April 7 Marine Reconnaissance Ambush, Pt. II

--Fallujah, June, 2016, after the Iraqis declared victory against ISIS

(looking very much like Fallujah, April 2017, when ISIS launched a

major decapitation mission)

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[Pt II of April 7 Marine Reconnaissance Ambush] --

Actions at the objective:

The enemy had RPG's and at least three light machine guns suppressing the friendlies. Marines are taught to dismount attack, which is commendable, but it is not the best course of action.

They must break out of the kill zone and it is better to do so in a hardened vehicle than on foot (as dismounted Infantry.) While the enemy forces were effective, there were holes in their operation.

They did not seal the kill zone, nor did they have a well-conceived exit after the action. The Marine's described this as a near ambush, but the fact that it was not initiated with an explosive device suggests enemy incompetence. Additionally, the enemy's guns were neither dug in nor in hardened bunkers, also demonstrating a questionable level of proficiency.

In short, the enemies were not top-drawer soldiers.

There was nothing stopping the Marine's follow-on vehicles from swinging off the road and rolling the enemy's shoulder. Anything should have been done to break the tempo of the ambush.

Again, a mortar or 40 mm round would have been a literal life-saver: never send a man when you can send a mortar round, instead. The Marines were not carrying grenades, which are most needed when assaulting machine guns.

Now for the hard calls (which is what they pay officers for):

The lead vehicle is in a bad way, but he is still drawing enemy fire, which lessens the fire on the potential maneuver elements. A deep move right and left and a vehicle assault to the middle of the enemy's position would be a possible course of action, and one would expect this to be a normal immediate action call for recon Marines. It was not done, however.

In past battle analyses, we have discussed the need to determine if enemy fire is effective or ineffective, a key combat lesson. If a recon unit lacks air assets to do route recon and clearing, then perhaps the mission should be reconsidered and reconfigured.

That this failed mission was not casts aspersions on the Marine's training and counter-ambush techniques. Remember: if the enemy can see you, then you can see them. If they can hit you, ditto.

Ranger's take is that courage and valor are not substitutes for correct route recons and terrain analysis prior to launching a road-running event. Distance and interval should be enforced between march elements. This rule holds even for elite troops; complacence is not a military virtue.

These prior preparations and adherence to protective postures may seem tedious in the face of Marines willing to dismount and be "kinetic", but such precautions may prevent the grievous injuries and loss of life suffered when they are absent or given short-shrift, as they were on 7 April 2004 outside of Fallujah for an unlucky group of Recon Marines.

Now this is the point where the reader says, "But you weren't there!", which of course is true. But shock action and firepower are linked to keeping your vehicles mobile and to providing effective suppressive fire, and both were deficient on the side of the friendlies in this action.

Had any or all of these offensive-defensive actions been employed, another sad and tragic event in a litany of such events might have either been avoided or at least, ameliorated.

April 7 Marine Reconnaissance Ambush

--Fallujah this week.

  
That Fallujah, the city a senior Iraqi Commander
declared definitively free of ISIS in June 2016, 
 the week after ISIS killed dozens execution-style in
that once-darling city of the United States, 
now abject sump 

I fear I'll do some damage
One fine day
But I would not be convicted
By a jury of my peers 
--Still Crazy After All These Years,
Paul Simon 

The earth is not earth but a stone,
Not the mother that held men as they fell 
. . .
To live in war, to live at war,
To chop the sullen psaltery   
--The Man with the Blue Guitar, 
 Wallace Stevens    

 And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.' 
--Ozymandias,
Percy Bysshe Shelley 
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This is a review of a 7 April 2004 ambush of a group of U.S. Reconnaissance Marines on an operation near Fallujah, Iraq.

The History Channel ran a documentary of the action on Veterans Day 2016. Of course, it was hailed as a great act of valor. And the men, as always, were valorous.

From History.com, "(t)he Marines fought their fears to stay calm and fought on--making 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, Bravo Company, 2nd Platoon one of the most decorated platoons for heroism in a single action in the War on Terror."

But the mission was a flub-up, the type of mistake executed far too many times in the 15 years of the current Wars on Terror. A military does not thrive on failures, yet we do not learn from our mistakes. So we make documentaries and sit transfixed before the simulated firepower, unaware of the depth of failure which we behold.

Ranger's Infantry mind railed against almost every aspect of the action presented.

The 7 April ambush did not have to happen, but it did, and it is not an isolated event. Several errors ensured the wounds and loss of Marine lives that day. We will look at a few:

The mission was to send a convoy of 3 to 5 up-armored Humvees down a road, doing something. The Platoon leader was a Captain (common in recon units to add some experience to the mix); the NCO's were heavily-weighted with combat experience.

The lead vehicle commander suspected an ambush, feeling he was in a potential kill zone. Hunches in combat should be dealt with as judiciously as those in civilian life, for mistakes can last a lifetime. Alas, the ambush hunch manifested.

According to the lead vehicle commander, their standard operating procedure was to stop in the kill zone and assault the hostile element, which of course, has them in a well-executed beaten zone. It is never good to start a fight from the one-down position ... not a winning proposal, even for representatives of a Superpower. 

Some questions:

• Why did they not stop when their gut told them to?
• Why did they have only direct-fire machine guns mounted and not 40 mm guns to put out suppressive fires? (It is not as through these are not in the TO&E.)
• Why did they not put out flanks security in the suspected ambush site?
• Why did they not have  artillery concentrations planned at danger areas, especially when moving in hostile territory on habitually-used roads? That is why we have organic unit -level mortars.
• Why were there no gunships flying convoy cover?
• And the OBVIOUS question: why not break OUT of the Kill zone, seal the near and far approaches and roll the ambush from the flanks or shoulders?

You do not stop in a beaten zone ... do NOT! (Unless you want to be on the take-out menu.)

The April 7th ambush did not have to happen. Moreover, sadly, it was not a unique event.

Setting a pattern is the kiss of death. The hostile forces knew the route of march, number of troops and assigned weapons before the Recon Marines had their chow call that morning.

Operation security (OPSEC) is vital, even in elite units. When a leader suspects anything is not right, he must take a proper unit protective posture -- even if this contradicts time schedules of the movement.

Time schedules are not worth the loss of life and limb of unit members. 

[7 April Ambush, pt. II, next.]

Blood and Sand

  Oh Lord it's a war party me no wanna go
Everybody seem to be inviting me
To a war party me no wanna go
Heard about the last one so thanks but-no thank you
--War Party, Eddie Grant 

Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope,
So now and never any different
--The Death of the Hired Man, Robert Frost

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction
--Newton's Third Law 

The reaction to the precipitating event is
not always proportional
--Ranger's Corollary to the Third Law

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Soldiers of all people should understand cause and effect since our actions have exceptional significance for the welfare of the nation they serve.

When reflecting on the punishing Battle of Fallujah (payback for the murder of several United States contract personnel) it seems clear that in this action lies the genesis of the terror army calling itself Islamic State/ISIS, a group now laying waste to much of Iraq.

It's not exactly rocket science, but no one wants to admit it, either. Things do not occur in a vacuum, and to every action there is a counteraction. Much as Hamas grew out of the early the PLFP, so IS finds its provenance amidst the violence preceding its formation, its affiliation a badge of pride for its members, vile though their brutality may seem to others.

Fallujah was a battle of little importance. The Sunni resistance could not be destroyed, like the city could be. Cities may be turned into rubble by superior firepower, but what is achieved in the aftermath?

Call the destruction "nation-building" and claim you are fighting for hearts and minds, but the proof is in the pudding. Iraq and next Afghanistan (probably) will prove dismal failures for the workers of hearts and minds via war. You may pull the shroud over your eyes and say you act in the name of rectitude, but the recipient of your self-interested largess will feel the hit for what it is (and not what is it intended, or constructed, to be.)

The coalition assault unleashed a fury which created terror ("Shock and Awe"), and so the terror continues to spool out in a predictable and logical fashion. Pride demands it.

After Fallujah, the Sunni population did the only logical thing: they took their beating, consolidated, reorganized, trained and recruited in a readily accessible safe haven, awaiting their day in the sun.

The once-Golden Boy of The Surge -- General David Petraeus -- made his name on implementing Counterinsurgency (COIN) in a modern environment. But he also knew his unknown unknowns. "Tell me how this ends?" he quizzically asked any who would listen.

It was not reassuring then, and it is less so, now.

A Tale of Two Cities

All is for the best in the best
of all possible worlds
--Candide, Voltaire

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness

--A Tale of Two Cities,

Charles Dickens

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It is through the lens of war that we now view our place in the world. Let's view two recently destroyed cities -- Homs (Syria) and Fallujah (Iraq).

The destruction of both cities came courtesy the counterinsurgency (COIN) handbook. We will conveniently elide rebellion and insurgency, since everyone else in government does.

In the 2004 Fallujah offensive, the United States Marine Corps cordoned off and blockaded an entire city, and systematically converted the landscape into a Stalingrad-like moonscape. This was not an action after hearts and minds, but rather, the eradication of insurgents. The U.S. affixed the name counterinsurgency to this death and destruction to make it more palatable to those not there.

Of course, unlike a true rebellion-suppression in which the government acts against its own, the Marines were mercenaries, sub-contracting their violence to a Shi'ia government which was suppressing a Sunni insurgency. This was not a proud battle for proxies for the ostensible forces of freedom.

Turn the page, and today substitute Homs for Fallujah, and yet . . . everyone is condemning the Syrian actions. The Syrian government is suppressing a rebellion in its midst -- the very thing governments are charged with doing. Think of our own Rebellion, a pretty bloody thing, and one of those one-off events in which the rebels actually won. But that is the risk a rebel takes: They might take your head before you take theirs.

So what are the Syrians doing that the U.S. did not do in Fallujah and on countless other map sheets in our Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©)? Is it not a little hypocritical or blind to accuse the Syrians for using the same tactics to which the U.S. sought recourse? In fact, the Syrians are more justified as they are operating in their own country.

Ranger's opposition to the PWOT is based on policies that are based in ignorance and arrogance, lacking any intelligent guidelines or purpose. The killing lacks direction and does not lead to anywhere of merit. In the annals of justified killing, actual rebellion suppression by a functioning sitting government qualifies.

Killing for no quantifiable goal is an unjustifiable military exercise.