by Max Velocity
Raid
A raid is a deliberate attack that is carried out as a form of patrol and will usually have an urgency or time limit about it. You will want to get in and out rapidly, assault the objective and get away perhaps before any enemy reserves or reinforcement show up. It could be that the enemy has an indirect fire capability (mortars and/or artillery), or perhaps even helicopters or attack aircraft that can be deployed to follow up as a QRF.
If the enemy has indirect fire capability they will likely call down fire on their own position once it is overrun. This means that you will have to reorganize off the position, occupy enemy bunkers or get your entrenching tools out and start digging! If they have some follow up capability, then you will need to get away off the objective into some sort of cover, such as the canopy of the trees, before the QRF gets there. For both ground QRF and ‘Airborne Reaction Forces’ (ARF) you should consider the use of hasty ambush on your route away from the objective.
If you expect helicopters, you could for instance leave a couple of machine gun teams in a tree line on a ridge to engage the helos as they came in, with some sort of withdrawal route in dead ground. For a vehicle follow-up, think about ambushing or booby trapping the approach routes, followed by a withdrawal. For foot follow-up you can also utilize hasty ambush and perhaps put in a claymore (or improvised device) or two on tripwires on your withdrawal route. A claymore and/or hasty ambush will certainly make a pursuit more circumspect and have to take more care, and will mess up any trackers that they are using.
Cut-Off Groups: If you are conducting an offensive operation and you want to be able to kill or capture any enemy that are escaping from the objective, or you simply have a destroy mission and do not want anyone to get away, then you can consider the use of cut-off groups. These will be groups in addition to the usual mechanics of a deliberate attack and they will be situated as a blocking or ambush force on likely enemy withdrawal routes.
This is similar to an area ambush and you will have to give detailed consideration to the siting of these positions: given that they will be on enemy withdrawal routes, they may also be to the flanks and rear of the objective and thus you will have to ensure that they are not in the beaten zone for your fires. You can utilize terrain features for this, ensuring that they are in dead ground to the assaulting and fire support groups, or combine the use of such dead ground with allocation of specific sectors of fire – i.e. right and left arcs of fire.
If you are really serious about conducting deliberate attacks then ideally you would get hold of weapons systems such as 240B with tripod mount and also mortar systems, such as 81mm mortars. All these systems can be man-packed in with suitably fit and robust personnel. If you want to increase ammunition carriage then consider use of vehicles to move the equipment closer to the objective. Also, ATVs can be used, with noise consideration, but they can be moved closer to the firing line once the attack begins, and you could also consider the use of various types of pack animals to move equipment over difficult terrain.
You can effectively use the 240 in the ‘light role’, but if you mount it on its tripod, it becomes a different animal. The stock of the weapon is replaced by a plate and the weapon sits on the tripod and is used in the sustained fire role (SF role). This is a skill for trained machine gunners in the same way 81mm mortar crews are trained. You can even fire an SF role Gun in a map predicted mode and in the direct role it will fire effectively out to around 2000 yards. The gunner sits by the weapon and fires it simply with his thumb and finger, traversing it slightly on the mount; this creates the effect of a ‘cigar’ shaped beaten zone that is like a fat cigar and can be laid over the objective to suppress it.
Such a weapon can also be sited in defense to cover approaches and can be laid on specific approaches to provide ‘FPF’ or ‘final protective fire’ as well as recording specific ‘DFs’ or defensive fire locations, that are recorded and the gun can be laid on to these recorded locations just like a mortar, using an aiming post off to the side and a specific sight. If you had 81mm mortars, or even 60mm, you would be able to deliver great fires onto the objective, to include HE (high explosive), illum and smoke. This would significantly even the odds.
To have such equipment post-event it would have to be liberated from the military and operated by trained personnel, which may be an option depending of the circumstances post-event. Both of these weapons systems are also excellent defensive assets. If you are using mortars then they can only fire if they either have a view of the objective, which is not wise, or you have a fire controller who can view the objective and communicate fire control orders and corrections to the mortar line, which will be located in dead ground.
Ambush
An ambush is an attack from a concealed position where you lie in wait for the enemy and hit him hard when the ambush is initiated. An ideal ambush would be situated to hit all enemy within the killing area within moments of the initiation and allow none of them to escape. Thus, an ambush is a mechanism for killing the enemy. You could attempt to use an ambush for a capture mission, but that would require excellent fire control, unless you were able to block the enemy in and threaten with weapons in such a way that you ‘had the drop’ on them and were able to capture without any shots being fired. This section will concentrate on conventional ambush.
An ambush is a form of fighting patrol and will take place based off information and intelligence on the enemy, plus a map recce followed by a ground recce. You will need the required numbers to establish the relevant ambush groups and you will have to patrol out to the ambush via an ORP. The types of ambush are as follows:
Linear: this type of ambush will establish a killing area on some form of linear feature such as a track, road or river. The main body of the ambush will cover the killing area and they will be known as the kill group. Rear protection will be provided by a group left at the ORP. There will also be two cut-off groups. The cut off groups are situated to the flanks of the killing group and have the dual roles of being early warning and act as a cut off to prevent enemy escaping along the trail from the killing area.
Figure 43 - Platoon Linear Ambush
Triangular: a triangular ambush is similar to a patrol base but by the nature of ambush it will be more covert. A triangular ambush provides excellent all round defense and is an excellent formation if you either expect potential follow up by large numbers of enemy, or you have to
Figure 44 - Triangular Ambush
cover multiple routes. For instance, you could situate a triangular ambush next some sort of track junction with at least two sides of the triangle covering the trail junction and the trails coming in. The disadvantage is the lack of cut-off groups for early warning and cut-off.
L-shaped: an L shape by its nature is very simple and the main killing group is the long part of the L with a sort of dual killing/cut off group provided by the short foot of the L. This utilizes the natural 90 degree angle that we try and achieve and will catch the enemy in a cross fire. It is best if you definitely know which way the enemy is coming from and have the short foot of the L farthest from that, otherwise the enemy is approaching from the rear of this group, may compromise them, and may be behind them if not all the enemy is in the killing area upon initiation of the ambush. You have a cut off group if the enemy tries to run towards the foot of the L but not if they run the other way. This is a popular insurgent tactic because of its simplicity and effectiveness if deployed right.
Figure 45 - L Shaped Ambush
Area: an area ambush has a main location of the ambush, which may be at some form of main track junction and may either be a linear of triangular ambush. In addition to the main site there will be satellite sites that are in effect larger cut-off groups. These groups have to be well sited so that one part of the ambush does not threaten another element with its fire. Terrain and sectors of fire can be used to achieve this. An area ambush will cover a wider area and multiple enemy options, and will have a greater effect in cutting off their
escape.
Figure 46 - Area Ambush
Mechanical: this is an ambush used when you are low on manpower but high on explosives. A mechanical ambush is something like an IED but it needs to be a big device or devices that will engulf the killing area and devastate it. This could be something like an improvised huge barrel claymore, multiple claymores strung in the trees, or a fuel device that is going to destroy the immediate area. This type of ambush can be initiated by a reactive OP that stays behind to watch the site, or it could be set to blow by victim operation or even a timer so as to allow you time to get away. It depends on the situation.
Hasty (Snap) Ambush: this is an unplanned ambush that goes in as a drill. It can be done as part of the drill for occupation of a patrol base, and can be linear, L shaped or triangular. A simple hasty ambush would be useful when you are facing an enemy pursuit or perhaps you pre-sight the enemy. In which case the patrol will move into a simple ambush formation, perhaps a simple linear or L shaped ambush, maybe even at squad level, in order to rapidly ambush the enemy and then perhaps to break contact and withdraw. Think of it as belting a pursuer in the face, knocking him back, before taking off and creating some distance.
Duration: An ambush will also be either short term or long term. A short term ambush is generally up to 12 or maybe 24 hours and as such will not involve much in the way of routine, perhaps just some buddy napping in place if it goes on. A longer term ambush will have to involve routine and once this starts happening it may be necessary to rotate personnel out of the ambush to an admin area at the ORP, in a similar way to an OP. This then requires more people in order to have personnel resting while fully manning the ambush.
Depending on the elements and the training of your personnel, you can stay in position for 24 hours on hard routine, with perhaps a 50% napping routine in place, eating hard rations and if really necessary crawling to the rear to take a dump. If you snore, don’t expect to be allowed to nap in an ambush.
Sequence: The sequence for an ambush is as follows, within an overall patrol plan:
Occupy ORP
Recon of Site
Occupation of site
Work Phase
Ambush ‘Set’
Routine
Spring or Collapse
Search
Withdrawal to ORP
As part of the orders and plan the patrol will move on the route out to the ORP in a certain Order of March (OOM) that will relate to the role that the elements will have in the ambush. They will then move into the ORP and adopt a herringbone formation and probably stand to and conduct a listening watch. After a suitable period of time the leader will gather his recce group and move forward to confirm the site.
The leader will conduct a recce and identify the required locations for the various groups. He will take security with him and will lay down a representative from each group in the various positions. For this example we will assume a linear ambush.
Once he has identified the location for the killing group he will first move to the cut off group location on the side where it is assessed the enemy is most likely to come from. He will leave security there, then at the opposite cut off group location and then move back to the ORP. There he will gather up the remainder of the patrol and lead them in and place them down in their positions. A group will be left at the ORP as rear security.
For the occupation, he will first place out from the main body the cut-off group in the direction of expected enemy, then the one furthest away, and then the kill group; the purpose of this is to establish security to the flanks and in particular the main direction of enemy threat first, to cover the rest of the occupation. As this is happening, the patrol is queuing in herringbone at the rear of the kill group location and moving up as the PL takes each group in turn and places them out.
Once the site is occupied the leader will move along and check the position of each individual and whisper to him his sectors of fire. As part of the plan comms cord is usually strung between the various groups to allow covert communication and also mark out the track plan.
The work phase is then conducted which will consist of the patrol building up the concealment of their fire positions. Depending on the threat and situation you may or may not dig shell scrape fighting positions. Any early warning systems and booby traps will be put out at this time, including trip flares and claymores. You will have to be careful of doing anything on the other side of the killing area because that will involve crossing the trail and could leave sign and compromise the ambush, so most preps will take place on the near side of the ambush.
If you are putting out any device such as a trip flare, claymore or IED the idea is to have it command initiated, not simply on a victim operated tripwire, the reason for this is that you want to retain control of the ambush initiation and it may be that a group walks into the killing area that you do not want to spring the ambush on, so you can’t have the area set up for victim operated booby traps. The exception to this would be any devices that you put out, if any, across the trail on the far side to retard the efforts of the enemy to get away from your killing area.
If you do put devices out there, you will need to erase any sign you made crossing the killing area. If you set out trip flares, ensure that they are masked from the kill group by something like the ground or a tree trunk so that the light goes forward to illuminate the enemy but does not blind the kill group. For parachute illumination flares, the same principles apply as for any other use: make sure whoever is firing them does so from cover due to the large smoke signature generated when they are fired.
You may or may not be digging the ambush fire positions in but if you have the opportunity, and it will not compromise the ambush, you should do so for protection. Remember that an ambush is a covert affair and a lot of effort needs to go into camouflage and concealment and remaining undetected, but conversely an ambush is sited to wait for enemy to move through it and as such will likely be on a route somewhere, so as long as there are no enemy right there right then, you should have the ability to dig in if you have to. You will need to place sentries out beyond the limit of sound, as per a patrol base, if you are going to do so.
Once the work phase is complete, the leader will need to ‘set’ the ambush. This has to be done carefully, particularly at night, because it has actually happened (at least once) where a commander was killed by setting the ambush and then moving back through the killing area by accident. Preferably you will not use a radio in case of detection, so if you are doing it physically the way to do it is to use the comms cord to find your way and move out first to the cut off group nearest the expected enemy direction, and then move back behind the killing group to the other cut off.
Tell each man ‘ambush set’ and then move back to the rear protection and finally the killing group, telling each man. At this point the ambush it set and ready to be sprung. The routine will now begin, which will have been organized depending on whether it is planned to be a short or long term ambush. For a short term, you will simply lay there in place for the duration. For a long term there will be shift changes and an admin area at the ORP to the rear, and changeover will have to be done carefully to maintain concealment and also make sure no-one wanders into the killing area by mistake.
In fact, an ambush should never be sprung arbitrarily, but this is a failsafe to not have people walking about. It is always possible that someone will open fire. The ambush should be sprung by the commander. If the enemy comes into the ambush he will receive a warning from the cut-off group either by radio or by tugs on the comms cord. He will wait to identify if the right number and type of enemy are out there and wait until they are at the right place in the killing area.
An ambush should always be sprung by the use of lethal force, never by a harmless signal such as shouting “Fire!” or blowing a whistle etc. The commander will usually initiate by firing his own weapon or perhaps another pre-planned act such as detonating claymores or
an IED, or perhaps signaling a machine-gunner to fire – if he does this it must be an unmistakable signal such as squeezing his shoulder twice or similar.
Upon springing the ambush there must be an instant ‘ambush weight’ of fire into the killing area. If you have automatic weapons a useful technique is to have every other man fire on auto and the others fire on single shot, to generate the weight of fire but also ensure that everyone does not have to change magazines at the same time. Hopefully the shock of the sudden ambush and the weight of fire will decimate the enemy in the killing area.
If any enemy try to run out the cut-off groups will engage them. The kill group will continue to fire at the enemy until they are no longer moving and the commander will then make the decision to cease fire, by shouting something like “CEASE FIRE!” “STOP!” or blowing a whistle. It needs to be heard over the sound of fire. Once the ceasefire is given the killing area will continue to be observed, what is called the “watch and shoot” phase, and any enemy that were shamming and take the opportunity to run will be shot.
The commander will then give the signal for searchers to go out. It is imperative that all hear this signal so that the searchers are not engaged: pass it down the line through the link men. There are various techniques that can be used at this point. One technique is for the cut-off groups to remain in place while the killing group gets up in a skirmish line and fights through the killing area, which is very effective particularly if there is a lot of dead ground and hiding places out there which need to be cleared.
The method discussed here will be for a couple of buddy pairs to go out as search groups. They will usually be from the kill group and nominated in advance. They will move to the cut of group opposite of the way the enemy entered the ambush and skirmish out into the killing area, sweeping the killing area and searching the enemy dead.