RPG Alley

[wulfstan]

Just read about an area of north east of Bagdhad near Baqouba that the US have called RPG alley because they get attacked with RPG's so frequently. The US military apparently tried to lure the attackers into an ambush from where they could capture/kill them. Sounds good, but can someone explain how you set up an ambush for yourself? And who would volunteer to be the bait, driving a vehicle with the sole purpose of being shot at?

[warchild1/27scout]

yea, you would sent out a group of troops(bait) and they would look vulnerable then you would have reaction force in place to slaughter the little bastards.and all areas of escape for enemy covered and marked for indirect fire and cas.boom no bad guys. :fork:

[Trident-za]

An interesting story I read about the SAS in Northen Ireland:

There was an IRA siper who had several confirmed kills using a .50 calibre rifle, so the powers that be organized a group of SAS troops to pose as a normal infantry patrol and act as "bait". The intel guys had "acquired" the radio frequency being used by the IRA at the time, so the SAS guys were listening in. They were walking along and then heard over the radio something like "OK, I'm going to take the one 3rd from the front..". All the SAS guys dived for cover, and that was the end of those types of "traps" :)

Don't know how true it is, but it made me smile anyway....

[Seraphim]

Could be just what happened on the thread I just posted "U.S. Troops Kill 11 Iraqi Ambushers " Maybe that was the trap.

[Argyll]

Takes a lot of bottle to drive a vehicle knowing full well it's going to be ambushed!!!
Kind of off the subject a bit,but is this not how the Marine CO was relieved of his command ,when he refused to use his marines to draw fire,for fear of mounting casualties,whislt another unit moved into another position,"the sacraficial lamb "so to speak!!

[Ngati Tumatauenga]

Anyone driving a military vehicle in iraq should expect to be ambushed. If you plan and practise for the eventuality, you won't be so surprised and shocked if it does happen, and therefore better able to react. As for having the 'bottle' to act as bait, I reckon there wouldn't be much of a difference threat wise between acting as bait and normal patrolling(whatever normal is). Given the choice between acting; bait/ambush, and reacting; sniped at, grenade attacks, what would you rather do, wait for someone to have a crack at you or bait them into having a go while you stand poised to smash them?.

[James]

As a troop leader, you would direct an individual or a group to move along a certain route, go to a certain place, etc. It's a bad deal for the leader (you don't want to try and get your guys shot at) and a young private with a rifle (you don't want to get shot at so your jackass squad leader/ platoon commander can go to town on the bad guys), but soldiers and Marines aren't paid to avoid risks.

[Argyll]

Ngati,
The point I was making about the bottle,was this,knowing that you are 100% going to be ambushd,compared to the unknown % of maybe being ambushed!!Not all patrols are ambushed on a daily basis,but when the same guys are being ambushed repeatedly,it means that the patrol routes are known,the patterns are known,the compositions are known,the US reaction to these are known,these guys have been,and are "cased"on a daily basis

[warchild1/27scout]

gnati is that the correct spell? made a good point. probing recon forces kind of do the same thing. they send out so many probes and do like a movement to contact and then when contact is made stronger forces are sent in to defeat the enemy. with the speed of our forces now days this probably is'nt as risky.but i'm sure it's risky enough for the guy doing it. :(

[warchild1/27scout]

i think the trap shut on some poor iraqi thug bastards. new york times wrote "gi's kill 11 who ambushed patrol in iraq,no u.s. casualties." for getting ambushed thats pretty good odds for our guys. :D

[96B]

There was a Rolling Stone article a couple weeks ago that had two parts about Batallion Recon Marines and it had a small excerpt about how they intentionally rode through some of the towns to see if somebody would take a shot at them to reveal the enemy.

I agree that potentially any vehicle in Iraq can be a target because with how the actual war is over in which you have momentum, now we have essentially standard routes that can be repetitive and the enemy knows this. I believe it is extremely important that we find and kill Sadaam and any of his supporters that are with him because the guerillas that are attacking our forces are probably hoping that he will return and I am sure many of the Iraqi people are afraid of his return as well. With a dead Sadaam I think one of their biggest reasons for fighting will be taken away.

[ibstolidude]

That was a very interesting article. It had tried to express alot of their personalities in the writing.

In the semi/less permissive environment against these armed insurgents, often that is what these patrolls do (as previously posted). They are a show of force hopefully to act as a deterrent but also a "tempurature gauge" to see how hot/cold/warm and area or people are. Try and pressure the Gs to act either prematurely or in a manner that is not to their suiting. Or preferable force them to move, relocate, feel threatened in an area enough that they tip their hat so to speak. Movement places them often ina position of less stability and greater visability, allowing coalition intel assets them opportunity to collect or the g-s to make mistakes that our forces wil capatilise on.

If pressure is constanly placed against them, it can cause them to make the errors, instead of them waiting for us to make the errors. It can cause them to feel threatened enough to attack when they are not quite ready. Unfortunately it can also create situations were our forces walk into area that the g-s are ready and waiting. Thus the need for designated CAT Counter Ambush Teams and vehicles to support those guys in the dangerous job they do.

The day you sit inside the wire is the day you're lost. The commanders know that conastant aggessive tactics ( not kill them all ) but constant moving pressure by patrols, pysch warfare, civil military efforts, shows of force, intel, movement, raids..you actually move your perimter out and force the g-s further and further from your staging area as the g-s know to come closer to your bases the more likely the will be caught. That starts to place the limits and constraints on them instead of our forces.

Certainly the G-s will continue to fight this, and will continue to have success, but these operations take time. And hopefully in time we will see it as a success.

One of the biggest challenges that our forces will faces is doing that in a incredibly crowded city envronment.