hist2004
06-30-2004, 02:42 PM
How unskilled guerrillas defeated a superpower, and what we should do the next time
By Frank Hilliard
The longest and most costly firefight since the Vietnam war was fought by the United States in the port city of Mogadishu, Somalia on October 3-4, 1993. A group of Army Rangers and Delta Force members attempted to swoop into a teeming market area and arrest two top lieutenants of warlord Farrah Aidid. Instead, Aidid's khat-chewing gunmen shot down two high-tech MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, damaged three others, killed 18 American soldiers and wounded 73 in an intense gunbattle that lasted 15 hours from mid-afternoon through the night and into the next morning.
I've been reading Mark Bowden's bestselling book, Black Hawk Down to try and understand how this happened, but there is surprisingly little military information in a story that's all about the military. Mostly what you get is the bang and sizzle of combat, the emotions, the noise and the confusion.
However, if I can summarize, the snatch squad came under heavy fire, two helicopters were shot down and three damaged, a rescue convoy was shot up and finally a second rescue mission made it in and out led by Pakistani armoured personnel carriers (APC's).
The most important thing to keep in mind in analysing this mess is that for most of the night from 100 to 300 elite American soldiers were pinned down by several thousand untrained members of the Habr Gidr clan armed with standard Soviet assault rifles and Rocket Propelled Grenades. Bowden says clan leaders told him the only thing that stopped them from killing all the Americans were constant strafing runs from helicopters overhead.
Bowden is at pains not to throw blame around in his story but it's clear there was a colossal force miscalculation made by Major General William F. Garrison, the officer in charge of the mission.
The American Problem
The American problem in Mogadishu was that they were too evenly matched with their opponents. The Somali RPG's countered the Black Hawk helicopters, the Somali .50 caliber machine guns matched the heavier American weapons and both sides had more or less the same personal firepower in assault rifles. And, of course, the Somalis outnumbered the Americans ten to one.
Some commentators have said the US forces needed armour to overwhelm their opponents, but that wouldn't have worked if the "Sammies" as the Americans called them, had got their act together regarding mines. Even mines weren't necessary. The Americans can thank their lucky stars the Somalis didn't think to use gasoline bombs against the armoured vehicles in the rescue convoy.
Muslim fighters in Chechnya turned Grozny into a bloodbath for the Russian army in January,1995 using tactics the Somalis could easily have employed against the Americans.
However, there is a more basic issue at work here than fighting in urban areas; it is the whole question of raiding as a military policy. A raid is an offensive operation in which it is not planned to hold ground. The raiding party goes in, does its work and gets out. The problem for all raiding parties is that by definition there will always come a point in which the defenders start to bring more combat power into play than the attackers. This is because the raiding party brings all its force into action at the beginning while the defenders take a while to perceive the threat, decide on a course of action and respond with action of their own. Because the defenders always have more resources than the attackers, at some point in the ensuing minutes or hours, the attackers become the attacked, often with fatal consequences.
So, to add these two factors together, the US forces were planning a raid (often risky) in an urban area (always risky). If that wasn't bad enough, the entire operation was based on using helicopters for ingress and egress, a concept which proved so costly to the Russians earlier in Afghanistan, they finally abandoned the country.
Presumably, American commanders, with so much money, training and dogma invested into helicopters, felt it was safe to use them in a country with no hand-held anti-aircraft missiles. The surprise of the day was that RPG's could be used as surface to air (SAM) missiles at low altitude against large, hovering helicopters.
Combat power advantage
The key to winning any battle is having an advantage in combat power over the enemy. This, in turn, is composed of a combination of technical considerations and moral strength. To explain that briefly; technical considerations include such things as better equipment, more ammunition, and better communications capability while moral strength encompasses both training and commitment. Either moral or equipment advantages can win battles; both together guarantee victory, both absent guarantee defeat.
In the Mogadishu battle, the US should have had the edge in combat power based on its vastly more sophisticated equipment, particularly the Black Hawk helicopters, and its finely trained soldiers. However, when the Somailis found how to knock down these machines, they realized they had a real chance to defeat the surrounded Americans. With this knowledge, they tried harder to do so. The Americans, on the other hand, were dismayed at the turn of events and angry they were in a jam that was getting worse by the minute. Only their combat training saved them from annihilation.
This shift nearly proved fatal to the entire enterprise. When the second rescue convoy arrived it only barely moved the combat power advantage to the side of the Americans. It was enough, however, to save the trapped soldiers and remove them from the killing zone.
Different Approaches
How could the raid have been a success? I believe there are three concepts that could have either avoided the initial failure or saved the operation at a much earlier point in time.
The first is a greater use of deception. The raid on Farrah Aidid's men was apparently the only one mounted that afternoon. Instead, had two been mounted, one 20 minutes ahead of the other and at least 1/4 mile away, the Somaili reaction would have been confused. Many clan fighters would have moved toward the first battle and wold thus have been out of position for the second. The forces in the first battle would merely have been setting up an ambush, not trying to kidnap leaders, and could have picked a spot where that was straightforward to do so. In addition, protected space could have been created for a helicopter landing needed to take the raiders out.
Between the two raids, US forces could have dropped tires and set them alight at other locations, confusing the clansmen who used this system of smoke markers to signal an attack.
Much as I like this concept, it has the weakness of not guaranteeing success. The Somali leaders the Americans wanted to capture might well have broken up their meeting and raced to the decoy firefight. So, my preferred solution to this particular problem is as follows.
I would have rolled a battery of field artillery into an easily protected area at the correct range for maximum accuracy several miles away. At the exact moment of the helicopters arrival, I would have had this battery fire smoke shells at the streets intersecting the target zone but several blocks back. I would then have put each gun under the control of spotters on the nearby hotel which would have corrected with subsequent coloured smoke shells. The effect of this action would have been to cover the helicopter landings in the centre of the smoke ring and to conduct ranging adjustments for the artillery.
Phase two would have been just prior to liftoff when the Somalis had recovered their balance and the smoke would have dissipated. Now, with each gun properly marked and the targets starting to appear, I would have had the guns switch to high explosive shells. A rain of destruction would have brought buildings down blowing up and burying the tribal fighters. Since none had likely been under direct artillery fire before, there would have been fear and pandemonium among the Somailis1.
The Americans, who would have been anticipating this protective fire, would have been able to emplain with some assurance of getting out of the area unscathed.
Too risky? Read the book or see the movie and you'll see what was actually done was a whole lot riskier. Too much collatoral damage? More than 500 Somalis were killed in the battle and over 1,000 wounded. Extremely frightening shelling and a quick duration would almost certainly have limited the civilian casualties to well below the actual figures.
New Strategy
The new US strategy, applied with great effectiveness in Afghanistan, is to use laser-guided, and satellite-guided weapons instead of artillery. It's the same basic concept at millions of dollars more in cost. For any other army pulling the same stunt, my advice is to make sure you have individual-gun-targeting support for every quadrant in the compass before you venture into an urban area teaming with gun-totting, and RPG-carrying tribesmen.
This advice especially applies to Canadian "peacekeepers" in Kabul. Don't go anywhere beyond the range of a hot artillery crew on the other end of a satphone!
Postscript
Long before the events described above, I visited Mogadishu, stayed at a hotel a couple of miles from the battle and flew over the city in a Somail air force Cessina. The impression I had at the time was of a sleepy post-colonial town with a distinct Italian flavour, sparkling white in the equatorial sunshine against a deep blue ocean. The idea the attractive, small boned locals posed a military threat to anyone would have amazed me. In fact, it still does.
NOTES: 1. The most effective weapon in an urban warfare situation is the armoured assault gun. These weapons have vastly more hitting power than tanks and can completely dominate any situation. A good example is the German PZH 2000 Self Propelled howitzer. Both the commander and the gunner have "under armour" sights for direct laying engagements. Just imagine if the target is only five hundred feet away!
Regards,
Hist2004
By Frank Hilliard
The longest and most costly firefight since the Vietnam war was fought by the United States in the port city of Mogadishu, Somalia on October 3-4, 1993. A group of Army Rangers and Delta Force members attempted to swoop into a teeming market area and arrest two top lieutenants of warlord Farrah Aidid. Instead, Aidid's khat-chewing gunmen shot down two high-tech MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, damaged three others, killed 18 American soldiers and wounded 73 in an intense gunbattle that lasted 15 hours from mid-afternoon through the night and into the next morning.
I've been reading Mark Bowden's bestselling book, Black Hawk Down to try and understand how this happened, but there is surprisingly little military information in a story that's all about the military. Mostly what you get is the bang and sizzle of combat, the emotions, the noise and the confusion.
However, if I can summarize, the snatch squad came under heavy fire, two helicopters were shot down and three damaged, a rescue convoy was shot up and finally a second rescue mission made it in and out led by Pakistani armoured personnel carriers (APC's).
The most important thing to keep in mind in analysing this mess is that for most of the night from 100 to 300 elite American soldiers were pinned down by several thousand untrained members of the Habr Gidr clan armed with standard Soviet assault rifles and Rocket Propelled Grenades. Bowden says clan leaders told him the only thing that stopped them from killing all the Americans were constant strafing runs from helicopters overhead.
Bowden is at pains not to throw blame around in his story but it's clear there was a colossal force miscalculation made by Major General William F. Garrison, the officer in charge of the mission.
The American Problem
The American problem in Mogadishu was that they were too evenly matched with their opponents. The Somali RPG's countered the Black Hawk helicopters, the Somali .50 caliber machine guns matched the heavier American weapons and both sides had more or less the same personal firepower in assault rifles. And, of course, the Somalis outnumbered the Americans ten to one.
Some commentators have said the US forces needed armour to overwhelm their opponents, but that wouldn't have worked if the "Sammies" as the Americans called them, had got their act together regarding mines. Even mines weren't necessary. The Americans can thank their lucky stars the Somalis didn't think to use gasoline bombs against the armoured vehicles in the rescue convoy.
Muslim fighters in Chechnya turned Grozny into a bloodbath for the Russian army in January,1995 using tactics the Somalis could easily have employed against the Americans.
However, there is a more basic issue at work here than fighting in urban areas; it is the whole question of raiding as a military policy. A raid is an offensive operation in which it is not planned to hold ground. The raiding party goes in, does its work and gets out. The problem for all raiding parties is that by definition there will always come a point in which the defenders start to bring more combat power into play than the attackers. This is because the raiding party brings all its force into action at the beginning while the defenders take a while to perceive the threat, decide on a course of action and respond with action of their own. Because the defenders always have more resources than the attackers, at some point in the ensuing minutes or hours, the attackers become the attacked, often with fatal consequences.
So, to add these two factors together, the US forces were planning a raid (often risky) in an urban area (always risky). If that wasn't bad enough, the entire operation was based on using helicopters for ingress and egress, a concept which proved so costly to the Russians earlier in Afghanistan, they finally abandoned the country.
Presumably, American commanders, with so much money, training and dogma invested into helicopters, felt it was safe to use them in a country with no hand-held anti-aircraft missiles. The surprise of the day was that RPG's could be used as surface to air (SAM) missiles at low altitude against large, hovering helicopters.
Combat power advantage
The key to winning any battle is having an advantage in combat power over the enemy. This, in turn, is composed of a combination of technical considerations and moral strength. To explain that briefly; technical considerations include such things as better equipment, more ammunition, and better communications capability while moral strength encompasses both training and commitment. Either moral or equipment advantages can win battles; both together guarantee victory, both absent guarantee defeat.
In the Mogadishu battle, the US should have had the edge in combat power based on its vastly more sophisticated equipment, particularly the Black Hawk helicopters, and its finely trained soldiers. However, when the Somailis found how to knock down these machines, they realized they had a real chance to defeat the surrounded Americans. With this knowledge, they tried harder to do so. The Americans, on the other hand, were dismayed at the turn of events and angry they were in a jam that was getting worse by the minute. Only their combat training saved them from annihilation.
This shift nearly proved fatal to the entire enterprise. When the second rescue convoy arrived it only barely moved the combat power advantage to the side of the Americans. It was enough, however, to save the trapped soldiers and remove them from the killing zone.
Different Approaches
How could the raid have been a success? I believe there are three concepts that could have either avoided the initial failure or saved the operation at a much earlier point in time.
The first is a greater use of deception. The raid on Farrah Aidid's men was apparently the only one mounted that afternoon. Instead, had two been mounted, one 20 minutes ahead of the other and at least 1/4 mile away, the Somaili reaction would have been confused. Many clan fighters would have moved toward the first battle and wold thus have been out of position for the second. The forces in the first battle would merely have been setting up an ambush, not trying to kidnap leaders, and could have picked a spot where that was straightforward to do so. In addition, protected space could have been created for a helicopter landing needed to take the raiders out.
Between the two raids, US forces could have dropped tires and set them alight at other locations, confusing the clansmen who used this system of smoke markers to signal an attack.
Much as I like this concept, it has the weakness of not guaranteeing success. The Somali leaders the Americans wanted to capture might well have broken up their meeting and raced to the decoy firefight. So, my preferred solution to this particular problem is as follows.
I would have rolled a battery of field artillery into an easily protected area at the correct range for maximum accuracy several miles away. At the exact moment of the helicopters arrival, I would have had this battery fire smoke shells at the streets intersecting the target zone but several blocks back. I would then have put each gun under the control of spotters on the nearby hotel which would have corrected with subsequent coloured smoke shells. The effect of this action would have been to cover the helicopter landings in the centre of the smoke ring and to conduct ranging adjustments for the artillery.
Phase two would have been just prior to liftoff when the Somalis had recovered their balance and the smoke would have dissipated. Now, with each gun properly marked and the targets starting to appear, I would have had the guns switch to high explosive shells. A rain of destruction would have brought buildings down blowing up and burying the tribal fighters. Since none had likely been under direct artillery fire before, there would have been fear and pandemonium among the Somailis1.
The Americans, who would have been anticipating this protective fire, would have been able to emplain with some assurance of getting out of the area unscathed.
Too risky? Read the book or see the movie and you'll see what was actually done was a whole lot riskier. Too much collatoral damage? More than 500 Somalis were killed in the battle and over 1,000 wounded. Extremely frightening shelling and a quick duration would almost certainly have limited the civilian casualties to well below the actual figures.
New Strategy
The new US strategy, applied with great effectiveness in Afghanistan, is to use laser-guided, and satellite-guided weapons instead of artillery. It's the same basic concept at millions of dollars more in cost. For any other army pulling the same stunt, my advice is to make sure you have individual-gun-targeting support for every quadrant in the compass before you venture into an urban area teaming with gun-totting, and RPG-carrying tribesmen.
This advice especially applies to Canadian "peacekeepers" in Kabul. Don't go anywhere beyond the range of a hot artillery crew on the other end of a satphone!
Postscript
Long before the events described above, I visited Mogadishu, stayed at a hotel a couple of miles from the battle and flew over the city in a Somail air force Cessina. The impression I had at the time was of a sleepy post-colonial town with a distinct Italian flavour, sparkling white in the equatorial sunshine against a deep blue ocean. The idea the attractive, small boned locals posed a military threat to anyone would have amazed me. In fact, it still does.
NOTES: 1. The most effective weapon in an urban warfare situation is the armoured assault gun. These weapons have vastly more hitting power than tanks and can completely dominate any situation. A good example is the German PZH 2000 Self Propelled howitzer. Both the commander and the gunner have "under armour" sights for direct laying engagements. Just imagine if the target is only five hundred feet away!
Regards,
Hist2004