Everybody seems to have an answer to the homemade bomb problem: more cargo flights, more radio frequency jammers, even explosive-spotting lasers.
This story in the current Atlantic has a solution I hadn’t seen before. The idea, from Gen. Joseph Votel, who headed the IED task force until recently, is to have troops stop riding through Baghdad or Ramadi on Humvees, and start walking the streets.
The growing use of IEDs is forcing America’s military strategists to rethink centuries of military doctrine holding that in warfare, mobility equals dominance. Votel told me that given the success that IEDs have had against America’s fleet of motor vehicles, the Pentagon may need to switch to more foot patrols. An intelligence analyst working on the IED problem agreed, saying, “The answer to the IEDs is to leave the vehicles. It’s obvious. It’s the only choice.”
Really? I don’t know much about infantry tactics. But I do know a soldier who was killed by a jury-rigged bomb. He was one his feet, not in a Humvee. Same goes for the British explosives specialist who lost limbs to an IED.
But the vulnerability isn’t even the big issue. Coverage is. The Army equivalent on the cop walking the beat works fine, if you’ve got lots and lots of cops in a very small area. In Iraq, there are 150,000 or so soldiers and marines trying to control a place the size of California. That means each patrol has to cover a really wide area — too wide, really, to walk. Driving is the only way.
Besides, as the Atlantic notes, more foot patrols “would expose U.S. soldiers to other risks, including snipers. And the December detonation of an IED in Fallujah, killing ten Marines on foot patrol, shows that soldiers will remain vulnerable to IEDs whether on foot or behind the wheel.“
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{ 40 comments… read them below or add one }
One word. Segway.
I think the 10 marines killed in Fallujah were at a promotion or medal award ceremony – not on foot patrol. Apparently howitzer shells triggered by pressure plate blew up at this gathering. The Marine Corps initialy reported they were on a foot patrol but later corected the story.
AM: an excellent call!
On a serious note, I think increased foot patrols would be of considerable PR value to the US military. Right now, the US Army, which blazes around in APCs and armoured Humvees, seems indifferent and distant to the Iraqi people. It also promotes the widely held view that the Americans rely on firepower and technology without engaging the populace.
I gather the Royal Army tends to do more foot patrols than their American counterparts: I’m convinced this makes them much more approachable and respected by the populace which, in turn, makes them more effective at their job.
Good Morning Folks,
Well the arm chair Generals are starting to relearn a lesson that has been learned over and over agoin at least since the Seven Years that begain in 1754. The IED of that period was ambushing by the “Native Americans” along the side of a trail or road as troops marched in formation.
About about five years into the war British General Amherst, generals wern’t to bright and quick to learn then either, learned that if you send scouts our on your flanks to engage the ambushers before the main body of troops pass through, you solve this problem.
In Iraq the American have decided to take a low profile from strongly and activly patroling. When the locals know that the Americans will be there 24/7 they tend to build a little trust and intell. flows and the bad guys have to find another neighborhood to operate in. When an event does happen the most violent of responses makes the best impression.
When Americans go in and “arrest the bad guys” and take them off in cuffs the locals know they will be back and will not be shy about extracting some payback. When they go out in body bags the problem is solved for good.
A dead Terroristis is an Exterrorist.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
All hope is lost.
YEAH SEND OUT SOLDIERS ON FOOT PATROLS.
Not only will they be blown into tiny pieces and seriously wounded by shrapnel, they will be vulnerable to small arms and sniper fire as well. Not to mention poisoned by chemical weapons.
Awesome strategy!!
Im glad our IED taskforce is so sharp!
Lets just sabotage our entire army. Why not, who cares. We need population control anyways on the planet pretty soon, mine as well start now with our own soldiers.[/sarcasm]
This is the stupidest ideas I have heard in a long time. A better idea is not having vehicle patrols on routes you dont absolutely 100% control.
I fail to see how foot patrols work.
The example you give:
“About about five years into the war British General Amherst, generals wern’t to bright and quick to learn then either, learned that if you send scouts our on your flanks to engage the ambushers before the main body of troops pass through, you solve this problem.”
You see the words “engage the ambushers”? That means…*prematurely trigger before the main body*. In Iraq terms, this means they set off a IED. We don’t have “main body” forces. IEDs don’t go off in FOB Anaconda.
This applies in /conventional warfare/, but not in the occupation paradigm.
Switching to foot patrols means they can switch from huge 152mm IEDs to lightweight IEDs designed to shred foot soldiers. It’s back to 82mm mortar rounds strung along the roadside. They’re easier to place and cheaper to make.
Dismounted patrols, especially in urban environments, make perfect sense. Allow the troops the ability to meet the populace and interact with the locals. It’s the best way to develop actionable intelligence.
I just returned from Iraq we did a mix of foot patrols and mounted and yes we got IEDed RPGed mortered and sniped there is not a really good answer to the problem. when dealing w/ EFP`s I would rather be dis-mounted when getting sniped I would rather be mounted. an aggressive stance at all times is mandatory!!!getting out and talking w/ the locals relly helped out .they would always tell us about an IED if they knew about it
Routine is what the problem is; all officers and senior NCOs seem to have this idea that missing your H hour time is a dreadful thing. Maybe its the Ranger school, J.R.T.C. mentality, but hey, these Insurgents are smarter than you want to realize. Operating with the Iraqi Army side by side is a big plus, but there are many who feel that the IA is corrupt and dirty. In which that may be true, but how can you establish loyalty and esprit de corp., when it is shoved down our throats, and you can not even trust the people you are trying to help take over there own Areas of Operation. Boots on the ground, you get sniped, moving fast in hummers you get blasted, with all the issues with complaints, and the complaints with issues. We have to focus on the individual soldiers lane, and allow combat troops to be able to be combat troops. We are starting to train our own combat troop to be politicians down in JRTC. We have ENOUGH officers for all that crap, lets focus on PVT Joe in squeezing the trigger when he thinks he sees the Trigger Man.
Sounds more like a solution to save on wrecked vehicles, rather than wrecked soldiers.
>Dismounted patrols, especially in urban environments, make perfect sense. Allow the >troops the ability to meet the populace and interact with the locals. It’s the best way to >develop actionable intelligence.
That sounds like the aim of the concept. It would probably would work in an environment where crime rates are high with small fire arms used at the most, but this is not going to be good for an environment where deadly IEDs and RPGs are likely to strike.
Seems more like the “we must decrease vehicle losses by using vehicles less” kind of thinking.
Dismounts can’t cover as much area so you’ll still need vehicles to control the highways and transit areas between bases and cities. As the majority of IED attacks are likely to take place in the rural roads between major cities, going on foot isn’t going to prevent too many IED attacks on vehicles. In cities, instead of concealed IEDs the enemy may opt for car bombs.
Dismounting soldiers as a solution to removing the IED threat? Sheer lunacy. IEDs are targeting Coalition troops…either mounted or dismounted. Rather than dismounting, consider alternatives. Here is how you mitigate the IED threat:
1.) Two words: Air Calvary. Air Cav can quickly insert on-call Quick Response Forces 24-7 (Soldiers or Marines). Air Cav provides maximum firepower, maximum force flexibility and complete urban battlefield dominance. This would eliminate the need for the currently large motorized force that the IEDs are targeting. Having been there on the ground, there is NO better answer than a team of fast-roping troops safely deploying from 100 ft off the ground. Considering that most of our troops/vehicles are being targeted while en route, this is the only immediate answer. What about helo-vulnerable RPG or sniper attacks one might ask? Have you seen these people shoot? They may accidentally connect every once in a while, but that probability is much lower than the success of a juiced 500 lb IED buried in a major thoroughfare.
2.) When mounted troops must respond or when convoys must roll, enforce and employ route diversity. NEVER utilize the same route twice if possible.
3.) Increase inter-theater airlift. This will reduce the need for over-the-road convoys and convoy security details.
Calculated risk vs. calculated gamble: The risk is the process of making an educated decision with a higher possibility of a predicatable outcome. The gamble is the process of making an un-educated decision and not remotely knowing the possible outcome. Riding in an armored vehicle is a risk…walking the streets is a gamble. Do not gamble with our Soldiers and Marines. They deserve more respect than that.
First off, if the the threat of IED’s was nonexistant, foot patrols would be a great idea for the purpose of maintaining or building public image in Iraq. Allowing soldiers to interact with the populace would breed trust and recognition.
However, the threat of IED’s makes this inconcievable at first thought. But what we must realize is that whether in vehicle or on foot, there is no way to prevent an IED explosion, there are many ways around the US anti-IED tactics, that insurgents have adopted.
The only sure way of preventing an IED from exploding is through intelligence. Like any other crime, IEDs must be reported to local authorities who in turn must alert US forces to there location so that they may be dealt with quickly and safely.
The main problem with this concept is that the local populace has neither the will nor means of reporting suspicious activity.
We can give them both of these with one change. To adress the first, their will; watching humvees get attacked by IEDs does not give the victims of the IED a “face” they are simply Americans driving around in cars. However foot patrols, allow interaction and recognition with American soldiers, two key aspects of gaining favor. Also, these foot patrols would provide the means for locals to report suspicious activity They simply tell an American on patrol. However this simple interaction is impossible if we are in our Humvees.
So the choice comes, we can adress the IED issue by throwing money and technology at it, the normal American way, or we can work on our public relations and hopefully prevent most IEDs from even getting close to US convoys.
Good Afternoon SCOM/Vet,
I think I take execption with your tactic of using some form of “Air Mobile” operation to deat with IED’s.
I see two problems right off the bat. First before a force can react something would have had to have happened, like an IED going off. The goal is to prevent the inicident in the first place.
Second if the raid is to be procative you have to be working on reliable intell. In Iraq to get that you have to have connections on the ground. The risk here of course is the bad guys knowing what happening and you find yourself ambushed in a Hot LZ. Been their done that, it’s no fun.
Again reqular foot patrols with GI’s spending days on the street and in the neighborhoods, not returing to the Green Zone when a patrol is over but sharing the risks with the locals. Getting to know the locals and building some trust and showing them that America doesn’t want to make Iraq the 51st. State.
This is the model of how General Mc Arthur pacified Japan at the end of WWII and it still seems to be the best way to stableize a former enemy.
The American soldier when cut some slack from the Chain of Command can do some pretty remarkable things, but the Chain has to trust it’s soldiers. It’s clear that out Chain of Command has little trust and faith in the troops under their command.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
As to whether the troops should be on foot or in a Humvee is area specific and unit specific. Speaking from experience, foot patrols are preferred, for the most part. The face to face interaction when on foot patrol is vital and the intel gained is tremendous. So much can be gathered from a persons body language and through repeated visits to locals, the troops establish a repore of trust. There is a bond that is created; you can tell if someone is nervous, or if the family is uncharacteristically missing at dinner time. This is what worked for me when patrolling the city of Hit, Al Anbar. But i feel that a few mechanized patrols thrown in would give an extreme advantage. For one, air support can not react during bad weather (sand storms). Send a foot patrol out first to sweep a large area (2-3 blocks wide) and then send the vehicles out. Let them work off of each other. As another posting mentioned, try to always vary your routes and tactics. This is a simple life saving rule that is vastly overlooked most of the time. Usually due to time factors, which should not be the proirity – mission accomplishment is priority
The idea we can completely divest ourselves from the road system is fallacious. You /cannot/ hold a city by zipping around on helis and never having boots on the ground…didn’t we learn this in Mogadishu? Forfeiting even vehicle patrols enables the opponent to have even more time to prepare areas for whatever. Mortar strikes would precipitate a helicopter strike, which is more vulnerable than say, a column of Humvees.
If you go for helis they’ll just IED the civilian population; turning the people against the government and the insurgents. More instability. Besides, IIRC choppers are more maintainence intensive than ground vehicles. It’d also be more difficult to sneak around.
There are less choppers than Hummers. You could only be in so many less places compared to Humvees, giving up interaction with the population and reducing the amount of points you can be, and increasing vulnerability at those particular points.
Since they’re unlikely to run out of 152mm shells the premature trigger solution seems to work best. In rural areas dismounted patrols are not an option if you have large areas of road to cover. You’d be too slow to cover everything or your troops would be fatigued and vulnerable to conventional sniper attack. A mix of both is the only way to go, and I’m sure the people on the ground are already playing it that way.
i believe the general was probably talking about a way to reduce cost of operation in dollar terms as in destroyed vehicles vs. troops!
foot patrol regardless of their quantity and arment will be much more prone to a greater extent and variety of IEDs which no longer need to penetrate armour. furthermore it will mean more targets for hit and run tactics by snipers whose current arsenal cannot penetrate armour.
I remember an incident where one of my friends lost a leg. Someone called our hotline that we had setup, giving us a tip on a suspected VBIED. Went to investigate. Doctrine at the time was to put out road cones at intersections and roads. That way we knew who was hostile and who wasn’t. Simple enough. Anyone who runs a roadcone get’s a facefull of lead. So as they’re out to set out the roadcones, BOOM. An IED goes off.
IED’s are a part of the game now. We just have to start using our heads and being more cautious. Change things up a bit. Keep the enemy on his toes.
It’s not gonna work all the time. It’s called attricion. And foot patrols all the time isn’t practical. Like someone else said, a city of 2.5 million or more, who’s gonna walk that with 100lbs of gear and ammo in 130 degree heat? Get real.
Like California, most of Iraq in uninhabited or nearly so. Californians love the coast, Iraqis love the river. Moreover, as the article itself makes clear, this proposal is really intended only a for a handful of cities. In this context, foot patrols could be a useful tool. No technology is ever obsolete. Mounted police and bike messengers are common in most major American cities.
i think air cav asy ou call it is a good idea coupled with foot patrols , regardless of the ied threat ..you must focus on the mission ..i would employ foot patrols and use air cav to set up snap vcp’s .and snap patrols ..the enemy still has to have the bottle to plant these things …he will not only have to look out for OP,s and foot patrols he will also have to be aware of random patrols inserted by helis ..if you have all this with maybe armour dominating terrain and a good QRF then you may start to reduce the ide threat , engage with the locals and generally dominate the ground
The brit solution to IEDs in Ireland was to have multiple small patrols orbiting on foot in the same area, with portable jammers to defeat the radio control and helis overhead. In rural areas the “Eagle VCP” – heli borne, drop in, check the traffic for a short period, move on by air to another location. The basic unit in Iraq now is the “Multiple” 3×4 man teams. 1 commanded by the Pln Comd the other by the Pln Sgt. Very flexible and 12 men means its still a lot of firepower.
The “mobility = Dominance” thing is an illusion if all you are doing is driving about. No interface with the locals, little feel for whats happening – if anything its counter-productive, just alienates those locals who might be on-side. Infantry boots on the ground. Thats what infantry are for !
Hey I was stationed at EODMU 2 so I know all about IEDs. Ive seen a lot of people dying over there in Iraq. Id say the best way to beat the IEDs is to go out on foot. Look for any hostiles and take care of them. If we keep driving over them then were gonna keep dying. So lets keep our heads together and walk it out.
Make a change for the Yanks to do foot patrols, they have been reliant on Tech for far to long, get on the ground meet people face to face, look at the way the Brits do it.
I have been to Iraq on Op Telic, where as the invading/Liberating Force we were seen by some as friends and by others as enemies. Now in Op Telic 8, we have come to the crossroads of this operation. The Iraqis/foreign insurgent forces no longer want us in their country/middle east, and are finding more technical ways in the form of IEDs to deter us from carrying out our duties.
We now have to make a decision on how to combat these types of attacks. I personally feel that foot patrols are the best way of combating this type of threat, this is mainly due to the way you can vary routes and observe suspicious packages, people and vehicles and like someone has said before, you also get the added bonus of interacting and assisting the people.
Mobile patrols are good for the wider area but have to be kept to a minimum, as the routes mobile patrols take are very predictable. As such allow the enemy plenty of time to prepare and execute attacks with ease.
As far as the concerns with snipers etc go, these threats have always been there and will remain so for as long as UK Troops and US Troops are in Iraq. I fear however we are now engaged, in a war we cannot win conventionally and we have to reassess what it is we hope to achieve in Iraq, and it is now down to the governments of the UK, US and Iraq to do their job, as we the Soldiers have done ours with the pride professionalism and expertise that those governments have only dreamt about since they have engaged us in this operation.
I agree that foot patrols have a place,but must be used sparingly; I have long advocated the use of combat tracking teams using visual tracking to detect roadside iedsI have spent the last two years developing course work using tracking skills to detect ieds. Visual tracking is not the complete answere to the ied problem, howevere when used in combination with good intelligence, and technology it can be very effective.
I would like to say that I know a lot about how these things are being detonated.The first step,is to completely ban radio transmission.We need to intercept,and destroy any transmission that does not meet our protocol.One satellite,or the shuttle..is capable of deciding friendly or foe..Its old school,but thats how the little fukkers are killing our kids.Every tower,and everything that looks like a radio tower,must come down.And what about foot patrols with bomb sniffing dogs?What about infrared that can tell if the soil has been turned?Right now we have technology that can be sensitized to actually see tnt,or c-4.Other trips are being engaged by laser…Duh..which can easily be seen by the right gear..I just dont get it…I say smoke the fukkers and be done with it.Iraq is now the latest state in the Union.
Gen.Votel is an idiot. Obviously, he never went outside the wire. Keep watching the war from the J-lens you jackass.
As a former combatant (Viet Nam) I can say that IED’s are just another name for what we called booby traps. As a former canine handler in that war (Combat Tracking) I can attest to the fact that dogs know a hell of a lot more about performing jobs we wish them to do than we give credit. As a former civilian instructor training combat tracking to Marines in 05 and 06 I can tell you that there are ways to get the bad guys with canine, but the powers that be decided to go with an Air Force retiree (who never worked outside the wire) as a principle instructor. As a matter of fact our second class of seven had 28 finds during their first tour, so that’s evidence that it does work. These weren’t IED finds, but human finds…those who actually planted the bombs.
When an IED is detonated where do you think the human scent of the planter is located? It’s located within a 360 degree circle due to the blast, and given a few minutes the dog will work out the scent path and do his job.
One problem seems to be that those in charge just can’t bring themselves to use a piece of ‘equipment’ as antiquated as canine. If it doesn’t have joy sticks, it doesn’t work.
Another problem is, quite simply, that visual tracking doesn’t work in urban warfare. I’ll watch as a visual tracker follows a track across concrete…or for that matter across limestone base material. A combat tracking team is trained not only to track but to become a self sustaining fire team if the need arises, and the powers that be can’t seem to grasp this concept as well. Their belief is that all canine operations should be routed thru the PM, but how man MP’s have you seen out there tracking or working SSD canines?
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”\
dlayne
25th ID Combat Tracker
1967
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