In the Mumbai tragedy, it took three days for Indias police and commandos to overwhelm 10 fanatical fighters who killed some 160 people and wounded nearly 300. The attack speaks to the lethality of guerrilla fighters armed with fanatical fervor and small arms, the difficulties inherent to urban combat and the security challenge of the modern city as soft target.
After the five-plus year battle of Baghdad, Americans have become accustomed to snipers, IEDs and car bombs as the most common urban warfare tactics. The Lahskar-e-Taiba fighters were of a more dangerous breed than a suicide bomber who detonates him or herself in a crowd as the number of casualties was directly related to how long they stayed alive and their ammunition lasted. Although they embraced eventual martyrdom, they sought to delay it as long as possible so as to rack up a higher body count. That is a very difficult enemy to counter.
In a column penned last week, strategist Edward Luttwak called the Indian security forces response pathetically inadequate in quantity and quality. Instead of the 200 National Security Guard Black Cat commandos tardily dispatched to Mumbai, India should have sent 1,000, Luttwak says. The Indian government response was certainly shoddy, but it should also be kept in mind just how difficult and complex a tactical challenge the Indian security forces faced.
I was reminded of an article written some time back (December 2003) by former Australian Army officer David Kilcullen, of counterinsurgency fame, in that services excellent journal. In the piece, Kilcullen discussed close combat in complex terrain, defined as terrain where you cannot see as far as you can shoot.
An important point he makes is that more than sheer numbers, urban combat requires small, networked, mutually supporting semi-autonomous teams. Even big battles in urban terrain rapidly dissolve into a series of mini-battles fought in streets, courtyards and rooms in houses. If a thousand troops attack a hundred in complex terrain, what ensues is not one large, single battle, but several dozen individual duels and small-group engagements fought over a dispersed area. He used the Black Hawk Down Mogadishu battle as an example.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters dispersed upon landing in Mumbai into two man teams and rapidly fanned out into the city. Countering such an enemy requires security forces that can also rapidly disperse and operate individually with very high levels of tactical skill. Even the standard ten man section may be too large for such battles, Kilcullen says. Instead, the four-man fire team may become the true building block for the close fight in the first quarter of the 21st century.
I would be curious to know how many countries possess troops with that required level of tactical skill and unit cohesion. Kilcullens piece in the Australian Army Journal brings up an interesting discussion as we contemplate how to counter what are sure to be future Mumbai style attacks and is well worth a read, along with an earlier piece he wrote in the June 2003 issue.
This is insane. All they needed were the cops they had to shoot at the animals that were killing the people they were supposed to protect.
Well not so insane, remember the north hollywood shoot out, and these guys werent as trained and determine as those two and look how long they held back the cops for, and they werent out to kill like these guys were, they were in paramilitary camps, had train with and were equiped with military grade explosives and were armed to the teeth, even better than the commandos that were later sent in…
I dont think it would have been as bad if it had happend in say NYC or DC or any major first world city, at least not the police response, the first responded would have been slaughter till the swat and/or military response came in, but the initial attack would have been bad with all the soft targets in major cities. Just imagine ten guys wit that firepower opening up in times square or major metropolitan city street, there would be dozens dead or wonded in seconds b4 the first cop or patrol car even rolls in. 9mm and a shotgun at best are not going to do much against AKs till the swat come in with ARs, snipers and a whole new set of tactics
There is just one thing I do not really agree on, with Mr. Kilcullen:
His proposal of 4-man fire teams as the “true building block for the close fight in the first quarter of the 21st century.“
In my opinion no unit should ever conduct mayor warfare, including urban combat in teams of less than 10 men. A 4-man team just does not has the necessary combined firepower to efficiently take on 2 to 3 individuals in a fortified position.
Another reason is casulties. There are bound to be some in any assault, and rendering just one member of a 4-man team unable to continue to fight is just a consequence too severe. This would basically immobilise the entire team immediatly.
my 2cents
V.
I really don’t think that is a valid comparison. These guys didn’t have body armor, and, more importantly, the N. Hollywood shootout involved bad guy(s) that were pinned in place by the, primarily, pistol armed police. Police in India carry automatic weapoons and rifles. Old rifles perhaps, but they still had rifles. Even if the police had done nothing except pin them in place, that would have halted the carnage. What was lacking was, IMO, courage and leadership.
I’m obviously missing something here. The Marines use a four man fire team, and have since at least WWII (manpower levels permitting of course).
It makes sense in *any* combat environment, as it forces responsibility and leadership as far down the ranks as possible, which makes leadership casualties much easier to deal with when the shooting starts.
The teams are still part of a larger squad, but are a discrete unit capable of organic suppressive and indirect fire (LMG + M203) as well as standard rifle direct fire.
So how is this different from what the article is discussing?
Second, does this mean the US Army, despite all its great improvements in recent years, still uses the 10–12 man “gaggle” as its smallest infantry formation??
My question is: How would a standard city SWAT team in the US handle a similar situation to Mumbai? Even though the SWAT team would be better trained and equipped compared to the India NSG, the SWAT team would be much much smaller, and would therefore have a much harder time sanitizing a large multistory building.
I suspect that a SWAT team or police force in the US would have quite a bit of trouble responding to a Mumbai style attack, the small number of highly trained and equipped police officers would be a great problem when trying to sweet a large hotel. I don’t think that standard US cops with hand guns would stand up well against trained and well equipped terrorists either.
My concern is that police forces are not preparing for some similar attack, and the police forces do not have a plan to sweep a massive building against hostile and well equipped opposition.
“In my opinion no unit should ever conduct mayor warfare, including urban combat in teams of less than 10 men. A 4-man team just does not has the necessary combined firepower to efficiently take on 2 to 3 individuals in a fortified position.“
Are we talking about four guys by themselves, or are we talking about the smallest task-able element within an infantry unit?
If the former, then duh, but even 10 men is too little. If the latter, then I’d suggest you’ve got things backwards.
Think command and control — already difficult in a wide open combat environment, gets very complicated in urban settings. Expecting one NCO to maintain c&c over ten bodies in an urban fight is ridiculous…he’ll be hard pressed to even know where they are at most times during the shooting, let alone coordinate their activities.
Hence the fire team structure as sub unit of the infantry squad — it increases the *effective* controlled firepower of a squad by decreasing the c&c chore of the squad leader. He now commands three junior NCOs, instead of a gaggle of 10 troops.
Step back to the platoon level, and you see an infantry unit with not just 3 squads, but with 9 fire teams — each fire team with organic LMGs, grenade launchers, and rifles. Gives the PL a great deal more flexibility to respond to the situation. As to casualties, you now have nine junior NCOs already filling a leadership role (at the team level), and fully prepared to take over squad leader duties should the squad leader become a casualty.
Finally, the structure is not in cement. Flexible but not limp, all that stuff. Platoon leaders can swap fire teams because squads as the need arises, or even pull the SAWs out of the teams when he needs a dedicated and heavy-volume base of fire element. You respond to the situation. But the four man fire team has proved itself extremely useful and flexible in combat throughout WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Its not really a new concept.
“My concern is that police forces are not preparing for some similar attack, and the police forces do not have a plan to sweep a massive building against hostile and well equipped opposition.“
I agree, but I also don’t think they should be preparing for that kind of contingency. At that point, it is not a local law enforcement responsibility, but a federal one that requires federal support. Most SWAT teams are a joke, really. To expect every municipality to stand up a fully capable anti-terrorist response team, recruited solely from ticket writers already in uniform, is unrealistic. And its a huge waste of resources in training budgets, equipment, and overtime.
@KragCulloden:
You are absolutely right, I have misunderstood what he meant. Indeed a small 4-man team is enough as a fire-team, as long (as you said) they are still incorporated in a larger squad.
I’m sorry for my rather poor understanding :p
greetz
V.
Yeah, they didn’t have the body armor like the north hollywood shootout, bu they firepower was very comparable. Swat may be small units, but at least in major cities, like New York here, the larger regular officer, can at least cordon off areas where the assailants may be and narrow down the area swat as to go through and move in as they clear it. They’ll have to eventually get some kind of federal and/or military counter terrorism units.
The main failling in india, even worse than the antiquated weaponry of the cops and commandos, was the training n dicispline of the cops, there is a vid of the cops in the subway running away from the guys, I mean one had a rifle which he dropped to run faster…He could have fallen back and taken some potshots at the minimum at least with the bolt action or whatever he had. I mean cops here even with 9mms would stand and fight rather than flee let every one get shot down, that whole way it was handle was a cluster*** and should give every major cities police department and antiterrorism squads something to ponder
I would hope that at best, most US city police forces would be able to set up containment in such a situation. Local SWAT could show up and look impressive for the reporters, but would do nothing relevent. The federal responders would do the heavy lifting, be it FBI or military.
I *hope* that Northcom has some type of standing force to respond to such events in the US — Delta/Seals/don’t care who, just so long as they are professional shooters.
Forgot to mention — the US Marines have an NBC response team that stood up several years ago, tasked specifically to respond to terrorist NBC events in the US. I would guess they are now wired up with Northcom. Hopefully JSOC has something similar for plain ‘ole shooters.
I have to say from what ive heard the terrorist in Mumbai wouldnt have gotten as far in an american city the cops only had pistols and wouldnt fight back india is atleast party to blame in not being prepared and ignoring the hints we gave them. India like so many countries is tied down by corruption on all fronts
SAS and similar units split down in 4 man elements depending on situation.The role of the smaler element is not a shootout as such but ability to manuver and cover as much ground as posible in the shortest amount of time.Once you find the guy, eliminate or contain him and wait for backup.
And a thing about ticket writer mixing it up with AK armed terrorists ‚most would run and call for backup.And Swat would soon be overwhelmed as most of them are simply to small.For this kind of dispersed action you need hundreds of bots on the ground.This is more of a man hunt than a shootout as you have to find the bad guys first.
The India regular police are not trained for anything like this so came on the scene in WW1 equipment and one bolt action gun per 2 policemen ‚how would you fancy such a gunfight against an AK ‚even a pistol would be beter as it could provide more volume of fire and these guys were shooting at each other from 20yards. And as for the terorist training the videos on the net don’t show much of that ‚they barely know how to shoot an AK.
Has anyone heard of the SAS or any other unit (much less “Tier One”) actually considering the pair to be the smallest taskable element? I’ve heard that the terrorists were using the “buddy pair” system.
the problem is “hostages“
the built in assumption that “hostages” need to be rescued, or their own casualties minimized, is what the terrorists are counting on. It gives them time to maximize their own killing time.
the answer is to treat all “hostages” as assumed “casualties” right at the outset, and instead of WAITING or CONTAINING…simply moving in for as rapid a kill as possible.
to believe that terrorists are going to restrict their killing is absurd in light of history. Better to accept the inevitable collateral casualties, and end the terrorists as rapidly and as thouroughly as possible.
this is politicaly incorrect, of course. But correct tactics. I would maintain that it would eventually prove to be a correct strategic move as well.
Everyone misses the point about the amount of trained manpower needed to clear a large building. Rooms need to be cleared one by one. Security needs to remain behind to prevent the bad guys from moving in behind the advancing teams. Each stairwell and elevator shaft needs to be secured at each floor. Even then a small satchel charge can blow a hole in the floor to allow the bad guys to drop down a floor and get behind the advancing troups.
Standard military doctrine for Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain would call for atleast a company to clear one of those hotels, probably two companies. Does the NYC Police have 200 trained SWAT. I doubt it.
I don’t know where you live or what kind of dopes you have in your police department but in Texas there is a plethora of active shooter classes going on and I know of no officer that would run in a fight. They didn’t run in LA and I sure as hell don’t see any of us running in Texas. In addition rifles are becoming commonplace in most major departments. Having said that not even SWAT has explosives beyond flashbangs. Try clearing a building against these fools without grenades. Us ticket writers, as you so ignorantly refer to us as, deal with rifle bearing morons alot more than you know of. I guess you have never been to Houston.
Food for thought: did those fleeing or cowering Indian policemen have live rounds? I could easily see them having just blanks in their rifle/magazines. For some people, it may make no sense to give law enforcement people guns w/no live ammo, but in certain countries (dunno if India qualifies as one of these countries) where gun totting criminals are rare, it makes more sense to issue blanks to conscripts for safety reasons.…Usually, when there is a heightened security alert, then live rounds would be issued.
“I would hope that at best, most US city police forces would be able to set up containment in such a situation. Local SWAT could show up and look impressive for the reporters, but would do nothing relevent. The federal responders would do the heavy lifting, be it FBI or military.
I *hope* that Northcom has some type of standing force to respond to such events in the US — Delta/Seals/don’t care who, just so long as they are professional shooters.“
The Posse Commitatus Act prohibits US military from doing domestic law enforcement. It would have to be a pretty serious situation.
Large city SWAT departments are probably very competent. Look at how LAPD SWAT took out the West Hollywood Shooters.
I agree the large area to cover and search would be a very significant problem.
RE: “The Posse Commitatus Act prohibits US military from doing domestic law enforcement. It would have to be a pretty serious situation.“
That only covers arrest & detainment, not use of force against armed individuals. For examples of this look at numerous War-On-Drugs operations where Marine forces provided the muscle, then Coast Guard types arrested, Miranda’ed, and detained the bad guys. (I’m sure Army and Navy types also did these joint drug operations with the Coast Guard, but I can speak from personal experience about Marine operations with them.)
You would use the same setup for a domestic terrorist situation, except instead of Coast Guard, you have actual LEOs for the arrest and detention phase.
I find it strange that nobody has mentioned the obvious
the only way to handle a situation like this is simple, small adaptable units (ie infantry fire team) capable of operating alone or as part of a larger force.…you have to get rid of several principles to urban warfare/mout/room clearing and use two.…SPEED AND VIOLENCE OF ACTION.…team leaders need to recognize that in a situation like this your going to lose people if you do your job right, people get hit and thats all there is to it.…you take your time and you might not lose any guys, but you just cost civilians theirs.…i tell my soldiers real simple, you wanna make an omlette, you gotta crack some eggs.….
Just a few comments on top of what’s been said.
If the berserkers are already holed up, a lot of this commentary is correct. Clearing a building against entrenched defenders is going to be difficult.
That being said, I wouldn’t sell local police short. In some cities, they’ve been taking down crack houses and meth labs for years. We’re not talking Barney Fife.
More to the point, local cops know the terrain better than a Federal force that might take hours to get on site. Terrain’s important in MOUT, or any other kind of battle. Local cops and security guards know their AO; so do local Feds, like FBI SWAT, or US Marshals SOG.
So a new Federal response force might not be the right tool for the job, if you’re talking a Mumbai-style attack. Maybe the hostage drama afterwards, but by then you’re playing catch-up.
The better course of action would appear to be nailing the attackers out in the open, before they get a chance to hole up. In MOUT and many other spheres, the advantage is with the defender. So, you’re probably better off not giving them that advantage, and using it against them.
There might be better response procedures than waiting for the cavalry. Lockdown and evacuation plans and persistent surveillance would be a good start. Let’s also not forget “observe, orient, decide, act”; whatever your armed or unarmed response might be, your decision loop has got to be swift, and your intel accurate.
As to armed response, patrol rifles are increasingly issued to local police departments, both large and small. Overseas you see see a lot of SMGs or 9mm carbines at checkpoints, in vehicles, or on foot patrol. I’ve seen Israeli cops still carrying M-1 carbines. All of them are still viable weapons against unarmored targets.
So are shotguns. IIRC, after the North Hollywood thing the LAPD rank and file complained about how they weren’t allowed to have slugs for their shotguns. Don’t know if that’s still the case. There’s good reasons for not putting slugs in general issue; they’ll punch through almost anything on a city block. But most of the COTS varieties lose around half their energy inside 100 yards. Some of them tumble or drop, not long after that, especially out of a smoothbore. You could probably design something even safer for cities.
So, all things considered, there’s a lot of ways we could use things we already have to counter Mumbai-style scenarios: lockdown and evac procedures, surveillance and commo, fusion centers, and enhanced TTP for local first responders.
I’m not sure we need to stand up new teams and task forces. I’d vote for working smarter, not harder.
The FBI should stand up additional hostage rescue teams somewhere in the midwest and somewhere on the west coast. That would gain some numbers and shorten response times by a few hours. Here in Seattle, we have any number of SWAT teams (Seattle PD, King County, Port of Seattle, WSP, etc) but a Mumbai-style attack seems like an awfully big challenge. Especially if one or both bridges across Lake Washington were blocked… It’s hard to imagine clearing two large hotels in the midst of total chaos without Federal assistance.
RE: RE: “The Posse Commitatus Act prohibits US military.…
Although I agree there are many precedents of deviations form the oprigiinal law which allow for the use of military forces in traditional law enforcement functions, the immediate response still falls to the local police. An attack “Mumbai” style in which the whole intentin is to kill as many people as possible requires immediate intervention. As in the nVA Tech shootings, the delay by police to wait fortactical support resulted in the death of 32 innocent civilians. We no longer can contain and wait for tactical response, whatever that may be. Although the average police officer would probably be completely overwhelmed tactically by an organized terrorist attack like Mumbai, waiting for the military or even the FBI HRT to arrive will allow for tactical consolidation by the terrorists not to mention the great loss of life by the target ogf the attack. The local SWAT teams have a much better chance of addressing the tactical response. They are already there. We just need to assure that they have the best tactical training possible to operate in this environment. This is where the military can provide to most effective support. Eventially, if the tactical situation persists, Federal law enforcement and/or military tactical response may be necessary. It all boils down to how can we mount an IMMEDIATE tactical response.
RE: Local SWAT and “We just need to assure that they have the best tactical training possible to operate in this environment.“
I disagree completely. Local law enforcement should NOT be in the business of doing military CT work. One, they don’t have the manpower base to recruit enough proficient bodies for such training. Two, military CT mindset is almost diametrically opposed to good LEO mindset — to expect you can have both from not just one, but dozens of individuals, is unrealistic. Especially ones that have already joined up as policemen (not military).
Three, I find it extremely unhealthy (for the republic) for local law enforcement to be spending money to get (even more) bulked-up in a military fashion — regardless of the intentions, once that money is spent and those expensive assets exist, they get used for all the wrong jobs, and the local civilians are the big losers. It is just NOT a job local law enforcement should be doing.
Military power should stay resident in the Federal military, under Federal control. We already have an absurd number of non-tactical uses of the absurd numbers of SWAT teams in this country…making them even more lethal and more expensive pushes us further down the wrong path.
If the sole choice is beween sufferring a Mumbai attack OR having even more bulked up local SWAT, I honestly would prefer the former. It causes less damage to the republic in the long term than the latter. However, the third choice is best — improving the response time of professional US military responders to such a situation.
The first line of defense should be any trained citizens in the line of fire to minimize damage to/maximize survival of bystanders/targets — training which should be freely available from local LEOs after a background check determines that the person is unlikely to use that training in a criminal manner. The second line are the LEOs, to contain the situation, and the third are tactical teams designated to cover large areas, seconded from the military, that have first-hand experience in urban warfare, whose job is to neutralize the bad guys.
Of course, that would require that responsible people make decisions, and decision makers treat citizens are responsible individuals, and we can’t have that, even though raiding those same people’s pocket books is just fine.