The Rhodesian Security Forces were arguably the most effec­tive coun­terin­sur­gency units in mod­ern his­tory. Rhodesia, a for­mer British colony (now Zimbabwe), uni­lat­er­ally declared inde­pen­dence from the Crown after a dis­agree­ments on a power tran­si­tion from European colonists to the Africa major­ity. A fif­teen year long Bush War fol­lowed, between the Rhodesians and two African nation­al­ist move­ments: ZIPRA, led by Josh Nkomo and backed by the Soviets, and ZANLA, led by Robert Mugabe and backed by the Chinese. The Rhodesians, the tar­get of the first UN eco­nomic sanc­tions, were backed by no one except apartheid South Africa.
The secu­rity forces, there­for, had to cover the area of the size of Texas with highly lim­ited resources and man­power (there were approx­i­mately 275,000 white Europeans and 7 mil­lion Africans liv­ing in Rhodesia dur­ing the war). Using South African sup­plied Alouette heli­copters and DC-​​3 Dakotas (some air­frames vet­er­ans of Operation Market Garden and D-​​Day), the Rhodesians devel­oped a highly effec­tive tech­nique of aer­ial envel­op­ment called the “fire­force” (see photo above).
A fire­force con­sisted of sev­eral “sticks” of troop­ies, usual one stick of 4 men per heli­copter or 5 sticks of 20 men per Dakota. The chop­pers were des­ig­nated either K-​​cars (a com­mand car armed with the fireforce’s com­mand­ing offi­cer and a heavy machine gun) and G-​​Cars, which car­ried the com­bat sticks. Fireforce teams were largely drawn from the highly elite Rhodesian Light Infantry –an all European com­mando out­fit– or the Rhodesian African Rifles, also a highly effec­tive COIN out­fit, this one all African with European offi­cers. The typ­i­cal Fireforce was one Dakota, 3 G-​​cars, one K-​​car, and mod­i­fied Cessna called a Lynx (used for close air sup­port). Hawker Hunter jets were also used.
The Rhodesians guided Fireforces onto ter­ror­ist (or Terr) tar­gets using mostly human intel­li­gence, stem­ming from the highly effecitve Selous Scouts (a pseudo infil­i­tra­tion unit which employed “tame” ter­ror­ists), obser­va­tion posts, and spies run by their Central Intelligence Organization or Special Branch of the British South African Police. Once a group of Terrs was located, a Fireforce was dis­patched through local Joint Operational Commands (JOCs).
The first wave of a fire­force con­sisted of eight sticks (also called “stops,” in that they “stopped” terrs from escap­ing into the bush), with the K-​​Car always the first respon­der. The K-Car’s gun­ner flushed Terrs from their posi­tions –usu­ally a local vil­lage in one of the Tribal Trust Lands– while the Fireforce com­man­der eval­u­ated log­i­cal escape routes. Once estab­lished, G-​​Cars or Daks dropped troops onto their stop posi­tions, with their troop­ies quickly form­ing a sweep line (four men spaced approx­i­mately 20 meters from each other). The stops locked their tar­gets into place, while the Lynx dropped fran­tan (napalm) on the flee­ing terrs.
The Fireforce tac­tic resulted in remark­ably lop­sided kill ratios in favor of the Rhodesians, while enabling them to patrol vast swaths of ter­ri­tory with a rel­a­tively small num­ber of sol­diers. Unfortunately for the Rhodesians, their com­bat prowess didn’t trans­late into polit­i­cal effec­tive­ness, as they won every major engage­ment from 1965–1980, but lost the war. Still, their skill­ful use of air­power as an envel­op­ment tech­nique was as ground­break­ing as it was deadly.
–John Noonan

04/​25/​2009 — Canadian sol­diers storm a beach in Mayport, Fla., April 25, 2009, dur­ing an amphibi­ous assault demon­stra­tion. The ser­vice mem­bers are par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 50th annual multi­na­tional exer­cise UNITAS Gold, which involves par­tic­i­pa­tion from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Germany, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and the United States. The two-​​week long exer­cise includes real­is­tic scenario-​​driven train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties such as live-​​fire exer­cises, ship­board oper­a­tions, mar­itime inter­dic­tion oper­a­tions and spe­cial war­fare. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Alan Gragg, U.S. Navy/​Released)

Courtesy my friend John Donovan, who writes: [Dammit!] We demand the imme­di­ate with­drawal of your forces!
–John Noonan

Alright, back to the “law enforce­ment” por­tion of Defense Tech. 

My bro David Woroner from Survival Consultants International is laid up in the hos­pi­tal for some pretty seri­ous stuff today, but he man­aged to text over this story about a shoot­ing on the University of Delaware cam­pus that shut down classes. 

This assault obvi­ously raises the alarm­ing specter of the Va. Tech shoot­ings and prompts me to post the sec­ond part of Daves rec­om­mended solu­tion to the recent out­break of cam­pus shootings. 

I invite you to slice and dice his analy­sis, but I also ask you to keep Dave in your thoughts as he under­goes some pretty seri­ous surgery in the com­ing days…

Part II

Follow Up: In the Aftermath of the release of the of Gov. Timothy Kaines panel report, while not scathing, did say the alert should have been issued, and classes should have been closed. 

Too often we see what can hap­pen, and how fast The term I use: Everything can change in a Second still applies. We all know thats what it comes down to for busi­nesses (pri­vate or pub­lic) and edu­ca­tional facil­i­ties. It is about the bot­tom line, cash and PR. The Liability vs. Cost of this Professional Security Presence can be eas­ily offset. 

If Virginia Tech had armed pro­fes­sion­als there, they would have engaged. There may have been casu­al­ties, but not so many. Also, from a busi­ness per­spec­tive, how much are you now gonna have to pay those 30 odd fam­i­lies who lost young ones in lit­i­gated set­tle­ments? I can guar­an­tee you this: cheap is not the word I would use. 

If you had the pro­fes­sion­als onsite, in a court of law, it would be eas­ily shown that the over­see­ing entity pro­vided secu­rity for the employ­ees, stu­dents and vis­i­tors to the best of their abil­i­ties. In my opin­ion, that would be the courts final say. Its all about Did you do every­thing you could, or at least show you tried to avert some sit­u­a­tion such as this. Follow the above or get ready to get sued out of busi­ness. When there is blood in the water, the sharks will come. 

Depending on the size of a venue, Professional, Armed Security is a must. 

Overview:

These Professionals should not be walk­ing around in bat­tle dress, but a spe­cific dress delin­eates who the good guys are. Proper dress is very impor­tant in this sce­nario.
Active shoot­ers, ter­ror­ists and other unfore­seen plans will always be there from now on, get used to it, prepare. 

This secu­rity pres­ence is not intended to be the cre­ation of a secret police, police state men­tal­ity in the venue. The idea is to always be con­sti­tu­tion­ally bound by fair­ness, law and con­tain the abil­ity to incor­po­rate checks and bal­ances within itself. It must pro­tect the pro­tected from becom­ing the tar­get of an out of con­trol secu­rity mem­ber or mem­bers. It should also be deci­sive and final in case of an event. It should come from proper team selec­tion and over­all cre­ation of the intended group, to include all three key com­po­nents of the secu­rity field. 

The three com­po­nents are Private Security, Prior Military, Prior Law Enforcement within the scope of the American Society of Industrial Security. This will surely bring together a force that will be able to work together from dif­fer­ent view­points, both learned and lived. 

Finally, an off prop­erty train­ing loca­tion is nec­es­sary to engage in learn­ing, train­ing and cross train­ing in all of these learned prior expe­ri­ences — to include method­olo­gies, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, real-​​time maneu­ver­ing and live-​​fire exer­cises. This must be sup­ported by the entity employing/​engaging such pro­fes­sion­als. The oper­a­tors must work out plans in real time sce­nar­ios, to dis­cover any inter­nal flaws and fix them. You can only do this when youre sweat­ing, engag­ing, etc. The world goes to a dif­fer­ent level when an event takes place. 

Also, in the con­tract, it must state that admin­is­tra­tors, own­ers, CEOs, etc. may not inter­vene and attempt to per­suade or order the secu­rity group to engage or cease. There is a lock­out and pro­tec­tion clause from the hir­ing entity in the case of cer­tain events. 

Communications shall con­sist of: 

Contact w/​ each other and the secu­rity base as well as a chan­nel for switch­ing to inter­weave, which would allow secu­rity and law enforce­ment (local, state, fed­eral) in the case of an event to coor­di­nate. Complete loop com­mu­ni­ca­tions is essential. 

These Professionals will quickly delin­eate the prop­erty and every­thing on it to under­stand points of flow, large group­ing areas. Its also impor­tant to develop oper­a­tional plans for mul­ti­ple sce­nar­ios on all parts of the prop­erty being secured. 

The event at Va. Tech. should clearly illus­trate the need for an over­all, all-​​encompassing noti­fi­ca­tion and threat level all elec­tronic device noti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem. What this means is that send­ing out an email is not sat­is­fac­tory. The admin­is­tra­tion per­son­nel must be taught to pass to the Security Center all threat­en­ing phone calls and any type of writ­ten or ver­bal intel­li­gence. The Security Center head (at the time) [and this is a 24/​7 oper­a­tion] should receive all data and dis­trib­ute it to pro­fes­sion­als on the prop­erty imme­di­ately. These pro­fes­sion­als can delin­eate the level of threat and respond appropriately. 

This does not infer that Regular Campus Police should be removed. Rather this is an add-​​on spe­cial­ized unit, and it should have infor­ma­tion flow­ing back and forth between reg­u­lar cam­pus police, the secu­rity cen­ter and, in case of an event, all know to switch to X chan­nel for inter­wo­ven communications. 

(more…)

You know, Defense Techs descrip­tor says the future of mil­i­tary, law enforce­ment and national secu­rity… and Ive admit­tedly been neg­li­gent in the whole law enforce­ment part of it.

Well, no longer.

My good friend David Woroner who is the head hon­cho with Survival Consultants International down in West Palm, Florida, wrote an assess­ment of the Va. Tech mur­der spree back in April, and updated his report a cou­ple days ago with the release of the offi­cial inves­ti­ga­tion by the Virginia state government.

Dave is a vet­eran secu­rity con­trac­tor and con­sul­tant with inter­na­tional expe­ri­ence. You might remem­ber — hes the inven­tor and man­u­fac­turer of the Wor4 Tacrail.

Ive posted his April assess­ment to be fol­lowed by his lat­est review of the Kaine report.

(Originally posted April 18 Editor)

Time for some changes… finally?

I have spo­ken for years not only to cor­po­ra­tions but to edu­ca­tional facil­i­ties, out­reach pro­grams, and many other places where peo­ple congregate.

What I have said so many times has come home to roost once again. The awful ram­page of one man, only armed with a semi-​​automatic pis­tol, can be and was dev­as­tat­ing. I have tried to get the mes­sage out­tried to implant a sim­ple piece of knowl­edge that “every­thing can change in a second.”

There are a few things I would like to address and, as a pro­fes­sional, feel it is my respon­si­bil­ity to do so again here and now. Any place where peo­ple con­gre­gate is, and has been, a tar­get for a “lone active shooter” or a deter­mined group to rain down the hor­ror we have again wit­nessed. It doesn’t mat­ter if it’s a local mall, school, church, etc.… These ill-​​intentioned peo­ple seek “clus­ters of people.”

Some men­tal­i­ties that must change:

An active shooter within a closed, con­fined space is only going to stop when one of sev­eral things happens:

They run out of ammunition

There are no tar­gets within range

They take their own lives

An armed pro­fes­sional engages and “removes” the threat

Behavior must changedo not “hun­ker down.” Move in any way pos­si­ble away from the threat as quickly and safely as pos­si­ble. The young­sters at Columbine who may have cut them­selves or injured them­selves get­ting out of a sec­ond story win­dow made a much wiser choice than sim­ply stay­ing where they were.

What col­leges, cor­po­ra­tions, and other facil­i­ties cost for a per­son to learn, work, etc. these days demands that each large buildin­gon a cam­pus for instanceshould have an armed pro­fes­sional within. If there was an armed secu­rity agent in any of these places, surely the toll taken would have been less. A trained and skilled secu­rity agent/​retired law enforcement/​active duty law enforce­ment offi­cer who is armed has a much greater chance of end­ing an “active shooter’s” ram­page. Without ques­tion, it is my opin­ion that an armed pro­fes­sional should be located within the ranges of these places where num­bers of peo­ple congregate.

“It won’t hap­pen here…”

Well, I think that point is shown to be absurdly wrong with the lat­est rounds of homi­ci­dal, sui­ci­dal Kamikaze-​​type attacks in small school houses, large cam­puses, and shop­ping malls. Usually a direc­tor of secu­rity is then forced to hire “baton only” type secu­rity. This must change. You don’t bring a club to a gunfight.

When will the “higher ech­e­lon” of busi­ness, edu­ca­tional, and other enti­ties finally real­ize that there are a lot of highly-​​trained men and women that would gladly accept these posi­tions? Is the money more impor­tant than the well being of the peo­ple who visit you? Think for a moment, if you will, how many ex-​​law enforce­ment and soon to be ex-​​soldiers will be com­ing home. There will be a large pool to draw from. It would be about time to find these folks, offer them a decent liv­ing wage, and know that chil­dren, women, and brave men (a 76-​​year-​​old holo­caust sur­vivor) would not have to die needlessly.

Finally, there are a mul­ti­tude of other ram­i­fi­ca­tions, oppor­tu­ni­ties, tech­niques, and more to be had and obtained to assist in keep­ing peo­ple safer. In the end, there is no guar­an­tee, but some peo­ple “up the lad­der” should now, hope­fully, get the mes­sage. Anytime, any place… yes, there are monsters. 

Well post Daves Part II: Assessment of the Kaine Report later today.

– Christian

William McMichael at Defense News is report­ing on the notional details of how the first wave of strikes against Iran would go, and pre­dictably, the ini­tial bur­den rests on the shoul­ders of the U.S. Navy.

“The attack would prob­a­bly come by air,” the arti­cle states. “Waves of U.S. cruise mis­siles and war­planes loaded with smart weapons would swoop into Iran from the sea and land bases to destroy key nuclear facilities.

“Out in the Arabian Gulf, the U.S. Navy would wipe out Irans Navy in a mat­ter of days. Irans air defenses could pos­si­bly take out a few higher-​​flying U.S. Air Force and Navy tac­ti­cal jets before being located and destroyed.

“In short, the first round would go deci­sively to the United States.

“But it wouldnt be with­out seri­ous reper­cus­sions. And the U.S. Navy would likely take the brunt of those. Its the uncon­ven­tional threat that would vex U.S. sailors.”

The arti­cle also reminds us that the Iranians still have Tomcats with Phoenix mis­siles. American intel sources have pre­vi­ously reported that the Iranians suc­cess­fully employed the Phoenix a num­ber of times dur­ing the Iran-​​Iraq War, which would make the Iranian Air Force the only ser­vice to use that leg­endary mis­sile in com­bat. (I, on the other hand, have used the Phoenix in the Puerto Rican Op Area to take care of some nasty drones that were threat­en­ing San Juan. Just doing my job, m’am.)

Read the entire Defense News story here …

– Ward