Sunday, June 05, 2005
Urban
We woke up the second day of MOUT FEX anticipating a fight. We were not disappointed. Before I get into that, however, let me explain MOUT town.
MOUT, first of all, is an acronym for Military Operations in Urban Terrain. Any military operations which take place in an environment which contains man made roads and buildings are considered MOUT. There is block 1 ops, which are your peace keeping and humanitarian assistance ops, and block 3 ops which are all out, Fallujah type warfare; anything that moves is fair game for being shot. Block 2 is in between and you could consider our current ops in Iraq to be block 2.
MOUT town is a small city in the training area which is about 200m square. There is a hard surface dirt road which goes through the center of town and forks at the northwest end of the city to leave the city to the north and west. There are twenty buildings which range in size from a single story shack to a three story 40-50 room hotel. The buildings are all cinder block construction with no furnishings or windows. There are wooden shutters on some of the windows and a few plywood doors. The construction is actually very similar to many third world countries.
So we started the day with classes on how to operate in an urban environment. Depending on the locals, your tactics have to change. If you are operating in an environment which contains friendly civilians trying to live their lives, you can't exactly go in throwing hand grenades and spraying bullets. But if you are attacking an area which is entirely hostile, there is no reason to hold back. The classes were really good; they really taught me a lot about the new ways we have learned to operate in the city. I learned this stuff in MCT back in 1999, but things have changed since then.
After our classes we were to attack the city in squad sized units. This was also going to be our first time with simunitions. These are some nasty little bastards. You take the barrel and upper receiver off of your M-16 and are issued an upper receiver specifically for these rounds. The round itself is about the size of a 9mm pistol round. For those not familiar with that exact measurement, the round is about the size of the last joint on your pinky finger. They are hard rubber rounds with paint inside them which are moving at 400-450 feet per second. The box says that you should not engage anyone closer than 10 feet, but I can assure you we engaged each other much closer than that. For protection we were all issued paintball facemasks and everyone wore gloves. Everyone seemed to get shot in the hand for some reason.
Our first day of attacks was our squad against 4-5 instructors defending a single building. We changed squad leaders every attack, but none of them seemed to want to change up the fire team leaders or fire team assignments. This meant I was in command of first fire team all day and we were the assault team every time. There are three teams: assault, which is the first one in the door, security; which ensures no enemy enter or leave the building, and support; which pours firepower on the building while assault gains entry so that no one is leaning out windows taking pot shots at them. Once assault gains a foothold, everyone else follows in trace. Assault, you can imagine, is a dangerous assignment.
For our first attack, we actually got to look at the building and walk through before attacking it, a rare advantage. The team leaders walked through with the squad leader and debated the course of action. My main concern was how my team was going to gain entry. My squad leader wanted to go right in the front door and I was adamantly against it. One of the first things you learn in MOUT is never take the obvious entry point, it is almost certainly booby trapped or covered by someone with a machine gun on the other side. I wanted to take a window into a room across from the door, but because it was about six feet off the ground, my squad leader argued against it. I fought and fought, but he wasn't caving. Finally I gave up, he was not giving in and the other fire team leaders were starting to turn against me.
I returned to my team and briefed them on the plan. All three men looked at me with looks of disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me" was uttered by someone, but one of the principles of leadership is to issue your boss's plan like it was your own; I could not show doubt to my guys, we had to execute the squad leader's plan. I think in actual combat I would have had more issues with it, but here I have to let him make his own mistakes.
So with our half baked plan, we pressed on in the attack. The support and security sections opened up with their machine guns and my first two guys took off. The most dangerous place for a marine in an urban environment is outside a building, so I sent two men to gain entry and I waited with the third man just inside the treeline. However, you don't want to leave those guys hanging so I took off on the run before they were inside. That turned out to be a bad decision.
I was right; the door was a bad idea. It was tied shut with parachute cord and my first two men were not inside when I got to the building. Now we were trapped outside and I did not yet know what was wrong. I was moving to find out what was wrong when I took the first round to the hand. It stung, but I was so amped up on adrenaline that I didn't really feel it. Before I could turn to return fire, I took a round to the shoulder. The rule was two round impacts and you were out of action, so I went down. A disgraceful fate for a team leader, to be taken out before your team even makes entry.
As I laid there on my back, looking up at the sky, I kicked myself for my mistakes. I should not have backed down, the door was a bad idea and I knew it. I should not have allowed the squad leader to overlook the poor placement of his support element. I should not have allowed myself to lose my outward focus. Once the bullets start flying, it is really hard not to focus down on one thing, and that will get you killed. You have to keep looking around, danger can come from anywhere. I knew that I had lost that when my first two team members had not gained entry.
I thought I was the only one who had not gained entry. As I was listening to the sounds of our squad assaulting the building and wishing I was in there duking it out with the bad guys, I looked up and saw my number one man, Smitty. He had a perfectly placed paint mark right in the center of his goggles. On the stairs, almost right beside him was my room mate, Kelly. I'll submit again that the front door was a bad idea.
Our second attack went a little better, but not much. Once again, my team was assault and we were assigned a less than desirable entry point. We were to squeeze into the basement windows, which were only about two to three feet in height, and assault from the basement up. "How fare is it to the ground from those windows?" I asked. "We don't know" was the answer. Great, so my team is going to dive headfirst into windows barely big enough to fit us with our combat gear on under fire. Once again a bad plan, but I kept my mouth shut.
We gained entry, but my leather gloves were ripped off my gear and my team mate ripped his pants trying to get in the window. It was a seven foot drop to the bottom of that basement and that caused some huge delays for us. The worst thing you can do in MOUT is become bogged down. The enemy knew where we were and they started lobbing hand grenades into the room. Our plan called for assault team to hold that room until support gained entry, but I decided we could not wait. I grabbed the only team member of mine still alive after two grenade strikes and we cleared the next room. It was unoccupied and I tried to yell to the support element which had just gained entry to the first room that the room had been cleared. With all the yelling they could not hear me.
One of the most dangerous things in MOUT is the inherent confusion of the battlespace. Gunshots echo off of walls, explosions are amplified by the enclosed space, units yelling over one another to communicate prevent anyone from being heard. I tried three times to gain the attention of the support element; I knew they were going to attempt to clear the room I was in soon. When a unit is jacked up on the confusion and adrenaline of the MOUT environment, they tend to shoot first and ask questions later. That was going to be a bad thing for me.
The fourth time I poked my head around the corner to gain their attention I was met with a blast of machine gun fire from my own team. A trigger happy SAW gunner decided to shoot first and not even ask questions. Once again the assault team hadn't made it past the first room.
Our last assault went a little more to my liking, but our unit still showed its inexperience. The assault team once again went in the front door, but we managed to clear the first floor without taking any casualties. There was a moment there when I laughed to myself and thought "ok, never gotten this far, what do we do now?" But I pressed the attack up the stairs. My first two guys headed up the stairs and a grenade came rolling down. The smart thing to do would be to run up the stairs, away from the grenade, but the third guy in the line had the other idea. I yelled to run up the stairs and took off, crashing into the number three man who had turned around to run the other way. I yelled again "get up the goddamn stairs!" but he refused. Finally I had to give in and run back into an adjacent room, grenades only have a five second fuse on them. Now I have half a team up the stairs and another half downstairs. Not good.
My number three man and I rushed up the stairs and found our first two guys stuck in a corner at the top of the stairs, pinned down by fire from adjacent rooms. The support team was on my ass, so I had to make a move. I was going to attack a room at the top of the stairs and push forward. I grabbed my number three man and off we went. Attacking this room required me to turn right, exposing my left side to the other rooms on the floor. I was counting on my number three man to pick that up, but once again he did not. As I turned to my right I felt two rounds impact my left side and one rip into my neck.
With the helmet, face guard, camo uniforms, and gloves, there were only two small patches of skin exposed; one on each side of my neck. Well that round found that spot. Once again I did not initially feel the pain, but it would hurt a lot later. Once again, I did not survive an assault.
We did one more assault, which didn't go well, but I still wanted more. If there was a club which did this kind of paintball I would join up in a heartbeat. I don't like the kind of paintball most people play though, where they run between obstacles, blasting away as fast as possible. I want to employ tactics and assault buildings.
Once again we hit the rack and anticipated the platoon sized assault the next day.
Our first day of attacks was our squad against 4-5 instructors defending a single building. We changed squad leaders every attack, but none of them seemed to want to change up the fire team leaders or fire team assignments. This meant I was in command of first fire team all day and we were the assault team every time. There are three teams: assault, which is the first one in the door, security; which ensures no enemy enter or leave the building, and support; which pours firepower on the building while assault gains entry so that no one is leaning out windows taking pot shots at them. Once assault gains a foothold, everyone else follows in trace. Assault, you can imagine, is a dangerous assignment.
For our first attack, we actually got to look at the building and walk through before attacking it, a rare advantage. The team leaders walked through with the squad leader and debated the course of action. My main concern was how my team was going to gain entry. My squad leader wanted to go right in the front door and I was adamantly against it. One of the first things you learn in MOUT is never take the obvious entry point, it is almost certainly booby trapped or covered by someone with a machine gun on the other side. I wanted to take a window into a room across from the door, but because it was about six feet off the ground, my squad leader argued against it. I fought and fought, but he wasn't caving. Finally I gave up, he was not giving in and the other fire team leaders were starting to turn against me.
I returned to my team and briefed them on the plan. All three men looked at me with looks of disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me" was uttered by someone, but one of the principles of leadership is to issue your boss's plan like it was your own; I could not show doubt to my guys, we had to execute the squad leader's plan. I think in actual combat I would have had more issues with it, but here I have to let him make his own mistakes.
So with our half baked plan, we pressed on in the attack. The support and security sections opened up with their machine guns and my first two guys took off. The most dangerous place for a marine in an urban environment is outside a building, so I sent two men to gain entry and I waited with the third man just inside the treeline. However, you don't want to leave those guys hanging so I took off on the run before they were inside. That turned out to be a bad decision.
I was right; the door was a bad idea. It was tied shut with parachute cord and my first two men were not inside when I got to the building. Now we were trapped outside and I did not yet know what was wrong. I was moving to find out what was wrong when I took the first round to the hand. It stung, but I was so amped up on adrenaline that I didn't really feel it. Before I could turn to return fire, I took a round to the shoulder. The rule was two round impacts and you were out of action, so I went down. A disgraceful fate for a team leader, to be taken out before your team even makes entry.
As I laid there on my back, looking up at the sky, I kicked myself for my mistakes. I should not have backed down, the door was a bad idea and I knew it. I should not have allowed the squad leader to overlook the poor placement of his support element. I should not have allowed myself to lose my outward focus. Once the bullets start flying, it is really hard not to focus down on one thing, and that will get you killed. You have to keep looking around, danger can come from anywhere. I knew that I had lost that when my first two team members had not gained entry.
I thought I was the only one who had not gained entry. As I was listening to the sounds of our squad assaulting the building and wishing I was in there duking it out with the bad guys, I looked up and saw my number one man, Smitty. He had a perfectly placed paint mark right in the center of his goggles. On the stairs, almost right beside him was my room mate, Kelly. I'll submit again that the front door was a bad idea.
Our second attack went a little better, but not much. Once again, my team was assault and we were assigned a less than desirable entry point. We were to squeeze into the basement windows, which were only about two to three feet in height, and assault from the basement up. "How fare is it to the ground from those windows?" I asked. "We don't know" was the answer. Great, so my team is going to dive headfirst into windows barely big enough to fit us with our combat gear on under fire. Once again a bad plan, but I kept my mouth shut.
We gained entry, but my leather gloves were ripped off my gear and my team mate ripped his pants trying to get in the window. It was a seven foot drop to the bottom of that basement and that caused some huge delays for us. The worst thing you can do in MOUT is become bogged down. The enemy knew where we were and they started lobbing hand grenades into the room. Our plan called for assault team to hold that room until support gained entry, but I decided we could not wait. I grabbed the only team member of mine still alive after two grenade strikes and we cleared the next room. It was unoccupied and I tried to yell to the support element which had just gained entry to the first room that the room had been cleared. With all the yelling they could not hear me.
One of the most dangerous things in MOUT is the inherent confusion of the battlespace. Gunshots echo off of walls, explosions are amplified by the enclosed space, units yelling over one another to communicate prevent anyone from being heard. I tried three times to gain the attention of the support element; I knew they were going to attempt to clear the room I was in soon. When a unit is jacked up on the confusion and adrenaline of the MOUT environment, they tend to shoot first and ask questions later. That was going to be a bad thing for me.
The fourth time I poked my head around the corner to gain their attention I was met with a blast of machine gun fire from my own team. A trigger happy SAW gunner decided to shoot first and not even ask questions. Once again the assault team hadn't made it past the first room.
Our last assault went a little more to my liking, but our unit still showed its inexperience. The assault team once again went in the front door, but we managed to clear the first floor without taking any casualties. There was a moment there when I laughed to myself and thought "ok, never gotten this far, what do we do now?" But I pressed the attack up the stairs. My first two guys headed up the stairs and a grenade came rolling down. The smart thing to do would be to run up the stairs, away from the grenade, but the third guy in the line had the other idea. I yelled to run up the stairs and took off, crashing into the number three man who had turned around to run the other way. I yelled again "get up the goddamn stairs!" but he refused. Finally I had to give in and run back into an adjacent room, grenades only have a five second fuse on them. Now I have half a team up the stairs and another half downstairs. Not good.
My number three man and I rushed up the stairs and found our first two guys stuck in a corner at the top of the stairs, pinned down by fire from adjacent rooms. The support team was on my ass, so I had to make a move. I was going to attack a room at the top of the stairs and push forward. I grabbed my number three man and off we went. Attacking this room required me to turn right, exposing my left side to the other rooms on the floor. I was counting on my number three man to pick that up, but once again he did not. As I turned to my right I felt two rounds impact my left side and one rip into my neck.
With the helmet, face guard, camo uniforms, and gloves, there were only two small patches of skin exposed; one on each side of my neck. Well that round found that spot. Once again I did not initially feel the pain, but it would hurt a lot later. Once again, I did not survive an assault.
We did one more assault, which didn't go well, but I still wanted more. If there was a club which did this kind of paintball I would join up in a heartbeat. I don't like the kind of paintball most people play though, where they run between obstacles, blasting away as fast as possible. I want to employ tactics and assault buildings.
Once again we hit the rack and anticipated the platoon sized assault the next day.
// posted by Josh @ 6/05/2005 06:57:00 PM 
