FIBUA, OBUA, Southbound5

[jmackenzie_15]

Fibua, Obua, Southbound Trooper 5:

Would anyone with any, or alot of experience in the areas of urban combat, particularly fighting inside houses, like to offer their opinion on a scale of 1-10 on how suicidal the kind of tactics being taught to us today are?

I get a bit frustrated when troops go through a doorway and the first 2 or 3 get capped immediately before anyone can even identify where the shots came from.In reality, how hard would this be to do, you can hear them coming, aim at the doorway (you may want to put a mag through the door out in the hall right away just to be safe) and just let loose on auto as soon as the door even opens a peep.Not like its a hard target, hitting a man standing in a doorframe from a few meters way is almost impossible to miss,even for terribly trained insurgents who have hardly fired any weapons in their lives.

Whats even worse is when the instructors yell at the troops to "pass communication" on the enemy locations, and to do "do their drills properly" , when they fail to see that there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO at this level of the fighting , about whether or not you get shot coming through a doorway, or be able to tell the guy behind you where the enemy is in a fraction of a second and have it be passed all the way back to command before another guy or two is shot up.

The problem is at the level of whoever came up with these tactics, because they seem to really be far more suited towards a surgical extraction or arrest of someone by lets say a SWAT team.... not fighting a house full of well armed and fanatical fighters.We havnt even really touched on booby traps yet.

This is all in respect to the build up training to the southbound trooper 5 exercise in virginia in the coming weeks.Would anyone like to add something to this now that I am finished blowing off some steam?

 

[Farmboy]

As my buddy calls it  FISH, Fighting In Someones House  ;D

Here is my opinion not even having done it.

The fatal funnel, not suicide at all if done right.

The problem is at the level of whoever came up with these tactics, because they seem to really be far more suited towards a surgical extraction or arrest of someone by lets say a SWAT team.... not fighting a house full of well armed and fanatical fighters

If you have fanatics fighting from inside a house you blow the house or room ect. However if you are fighting house to house and don't know exactly where they are, or going in to take a couple prisoners and search the house....

In reality, how hard would this be to do, you can hear them coming, aim at the doorway

This is what flash bangs are for and when done right you shouldn't hear them coming.

This is also why you and swat would go in at 3:00 in the morning. Besides the fact that the people in the house are usually sleeping, when was the last time you've seen bad guys with night vision.

Whats even worse is when the instructors yell at the troops to "pass communication" on the enemy locations, and to do "do their drills properly" , when they fail to see that there is NOTHING YOU CAN DO at this level of the fighting , about whether or not you get shot coming through a doorway, or be able to tell the guy behind you where the enemy is in a fraction of a second and have it be passed all the way back to command before another guy or two is shot up.

At this point you should have gone through you OODA loop and either taken them out or have them covered.

 

[Gayson]

This is one of the reasons why I believe Armor should have a role in an urban environment.  Sending troops through obviouse routes of a building sucks when an Armoured Veh could just blow a hole in the side of the building creating new access areas.

Farmboy.

IMO having a total dependancy on flashbangs sucks.  What happens if you are not just clearing a house or building but an entire city block or more!  Using a flash bang for every room (because it would be hard to always know what rooms are occupied by insurgents) would result in a quick depletion on such pyro.

As for the OODA loop, the guys inside the room would likely be able to go through their before the guys bursting through the door because

a) The door is a chokepoint that the en would cover, they know their en would come through that location while they themselves have cover in that room (hopefully not).

b)  The en would probably know you are coming due to gunfire heard in other rooms or buildings in the battle.


I hope some of these questions may be answered for us if we get to play with that maze at FYA!  ;D

 

[Kal]

like many thing It's just one of those that requires a lot of practise.  Yes, ideally for room clearing it would be much more effective to pop a couple frags in and empty a mag full auto into it, but when wanting to rescue hostages or capture the bad guys, it's not such a great ideal.  Then there's the safety issue also, the building materials of warehouses, ships, factories, etc use much more robust materials (steel, concrete, brick) than that of the average house.  Thin drywall and cheap hollow doors don't stop fragments that well, and since you and/or buddy are only a couple feet away, it may not be the best idea.  Distraction devices are a much better alternative, but they are very expensive and if used on an ex your unit would need quite a few for training, that's why there not often used.  I'm sure extended exposure to them isn't such a good idea either.....

 

[Farmboy]

and to quote "Blackhawk Down"

".... remember, people live there"

It not just bad guys that will be in all the building you have to enter. So blowing out the wall with armour or throwing in a couple frags isn't always a good thing.

if we get to play with that maze at FYA!

or if they brought it up to us.  8)

 

[marshmanguy]

Armour should stay away from urban areas because they are just too vulnerable, even with infantry backup.  They would get RPGed to death long before they even got to the house you wanted a hole in.  Also, the point made above, I'm sure the mother that might be cooking dinner or something would not appreciate having herself blown through the wall and then having a large mess develop in her kitchen.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

marshmanguy,

A USMC Major who served in Fallujah told us that tanks were vital to urban operations.  Tanks have to used carefully and must be well-protected but I'd hate to fight the urban battle without them.  Their ability to bring precise and lethal firepower (either coax or main) from a protected platform makes them a key tool for the "three block war (at least the highly lethal mid-intensity warfighting block)."  We cannot just stay away from urban areas because we'd rather operate in wide open spaces.  Sometimes we need to go where the battle is, so to speak, whether we'd like to or not.

Cheers,

2B

 

[Farmboy]

Armour should stay away from urban areas because they are just too vulnerable, even with infantry backup.  They would get RPGed to death long before they even got to the house you wanted a hole in.

Like 2Bravo said this is being proved wrong in Iraq.

 

[marshmanguy]

M1A2s, fine, they are freakin monsters and I highly doubt that an RPG-7 or anything like the Iraqis have can take it down.  But an LAV is another story, but the C2 might not have problems.  And don't get me wrong, having armoured support is the cat's a**.

 

[Kal]

Well, there's a pretty big difference between a LAV and a tank.  Yes, the LAV lll's should have better armour, but it's going to be a bit of a wait for lightweight inexpensive armour to be manufactured.  If there's a high threat of RPGs, however, nothing a bit of reactive armour can't handle...

 

[marshmanguy]

Well that's good.  A reason they probably don't practice building assaults by ramming a tank through em is cuz it'd cost alot to build it again, think that's probly a main reason.  On the topic of OBUA, is it taught on SQ?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

While I guess that ramming the building is a breaching option, using a HESH round will do a better job with less masonry falling on the tank. 

The other big reason we don't ram buildings (on purpose) is that some buildings have basements.  Most ground-floors were not designed to withstand the weight of a tank.  Crashing into the basement and having the rest of the building fall on top of the tank, while perhaps exciting for the watching infantry, would not be a good thing for the crew...

Cheers,

2B

 

[Dark_Soldier]

I did my SQ last summer (04) and Fibua/Obua was not taught with the exception of how to use the C-6 in close quarters.