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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Black Watch rethink after attacks |
| 2004-11-09 |
| The Black Watch battle group in Iraq are urgently reviewing tactics after the third attack on Camp Dogwood troops in five days killed a fourth soldier. The scale of the casualties and the attacks' "intensity and sophistication" have led to "searching questions", the BBC's David Loyn said, from the camp. He said the practice of troops going into villages in soft berets to gather information was being re-evaluated. But a Black Watch spokesman said the troops were "more determined". "While we mourn a lost colleague, the whole battle group has just been made more determined by this to complete our important mission," Capt Stuart Macaulay said. "Our thoughts are with his family." In Monday's incident, a Warrior armoured vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb just after dark, killing one soldier instantly and injuring two others. David Loyn said the blast was powerful enough to blow the vehicle off the road, taking the wheels off one side. He said flares immediately lit up the night sky around Camp Dogwood as the Black Watch battle group took up defensive positions to prevent any follow-up attacks by mortars or rockets. It followed two suicide car bomb attacks - one on Sunday, in which two bomb disposal experts were injured, and one last Thursday in which three soldiers died. Our correspondent said the Black Watch were under almost daily attacks and "now know that they are facing a much more sophisticated enemy than when they first came up here". |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #11 Well, Bulldog, should the Loughlin (?) Hall action of 1987 be repeated en masse? |
| Posted by: Phutch Javish6999 2004-11-09 12:27:02 PM |
| #10 I bow to your superior assumption-based assessment of the situation in Southern Iraq, Zhang Fei. If I follow you correctly, losing a mere twenty men to hostile action since the end of April last year has clearly just been down to 'luck'. Perhaps you ought to contact British military authorities in Basra and tell them how you could have slashed that number had you been in command. You call it luck: I'd call it a proportionate response to the threat level posed. British forces have faced a number of uprisings in Basra and elsewhere, and have managed, each time, to quell the opposition using a combination of sufficient firepower and good cooperation from the locals. The US have been in a different situation and have handled things a different way. I'm not going to assume that I know how to do things better than the US military command, and I suggest you show a bit more humility towards the guys making the decisions on the ground on the British side. Flexibility is the key to effective military operations; your attitude seems pretty rigid to me. The Black Watch will adapt to their new environment just as the US military has. The IRA are 'non-entities', 'much hyped' and 'romanticized'? Tell that to the relatives of the thousands who have died as a result of the Troubles, in Northern Ireland, Ireland, mainland UK and elsewhere, over years. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-09 11:43:47 AM |
| #9 Good comment, Bulldog. The Black Watch has gone from Waterside to Bogside.. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2004-11-09 11:27:45 AM |
| #8 The Isrurgents are trying to 'punch' through; their supply lines are being choked off by the 'Black Watch', the US was correct in this assessment! |
| Posted by: smn 2004-11-09 11:18:53 AM |
| #7 "When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds generally follow." --LBJ |
| Posted by: Psycho Hillbilly 2004-11-09 10:09:24 AM |
| #6 Bulldog: Yep. The softly-softly, flexible, approach may have helped keep hearts and minds in Basra, but up north the they'll have to be protected, and wary of everyone, at all times. No offense, but I don't think the softly-softly approach did anything for British forces. They were simply lucky because the mass of the population were cooperative, and Sadr chose to make his stand in US-held territory. American troops were super-trusting of locals, even in hostile territory, until they started getting shot in the head at close range, while the locals cheered. British exceptionalism in guerrilla warfare is a figment of the imagination. During the Malayan* Emergency, the British colonial authorities adopted nightly curfews through Malaya during the entire time they were in-country against a guerrilla force that was a fraction of the force in Iraq, and routinely hung captured communists. The soft-softly approach was a reaction to the low level of threat posed by non-entities like the much-hyped up and romanticized IRA. In Malaya, where, like Iraq, the opposition was actually capable of winning power via military victory, the British adopted harsh tactics that included compulsory relocation from vast areas of countryside and public hangings. * Now Malaysia and Singapore |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-11-09 10:04:48 AM |
| #5 Aye, high time to kick in a few doors.. ....toss in grenade, rinse, repeat. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-11-09 9:19:13 AM |
| #4 Aye, high time to kick in a few doors.. |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-11-09 8:22:27 AM |
| #3 Yup B, time to deploy a nasty nasty approach , screw hearts and minds , theres too much at risk for the long term future of operations with that approach . Our silky gloves need to come off , the local population is with us or against us , simple . So what if we are hated up there , we are already . Sniper deployment and snatch/bag raids please . Ohh and Tony B , send another support battalion out there please just to show we mean business , and watch the lefties scream ! |
| Posted by: MacNails 2004-11-09 7:56:09 AM |
| #2 Yep. The softly-softly, flexible, approach may have helped keep hearts and minds in Basra, but up north the they'll have to be protected, and wary of everyone, at all times. Bit of a culture shock for the boys. They've crossed to Derry from Londonderry. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2004-11-09 7:42:03 AM |
| #1 I'm sorry to see it, but this does confirm that different enemies call for different tactics. The Scots are looking more American every day now that they've met the Sunni. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2004-11-09 7:33:19 AM |