Fire Force.

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Thanks to the three part Internet article by Dan Tharp and SOFREP replete with diagrams, drawings and photographs. Thank you Dan!

As identified by Dupuy those three factors eternal and unchanging contributing to battlefield success being:

* Officers are more dynamic and aggressive.

Dynamic as responding better to changing conditions.

* Doctrine, tactics and equipment are more suited to the conditions of combat and the environment.

* Troops perform team tasks better.

Here an excellent example of those three factors at work. From that era of the Rhodesian Bush War the Rhodesian Fire Force concept.

Fire Force a platoon sized infantry on-call unit each man "jump" qualified and having at the instantaneous disposal air force transport and combat fire support. Fire Force normally consisting of:

* Heliborne assault.
* Fixed wing close-air-support [CAS].
* Parachute assault.

That heliborne assault in part consisting of one chopper of which providing both C^3 [command, control, communications] and suppressive fire support. A most senior ranking officer [major] in the command helicopter in control and issuing orders and instructions as the battle develops. Similar to the American Firefly concept of the Vietnam War. That comparative senior ranking officer for a platoon sized element necessitated by the authority as deemed required.

Those paratroopers the "stripped down" soldier to the minimum. Slightly encumbered with gear and ready for battle instantly. Normally jumping with a bare minimum of equipment, that to include the FN FAL rifle and one hundred rounds of ammo in pouches, full canteen, the uniform consisting of running shoes [not boots] running shorts, an undershirt, some web gear and that is that.

These Rhodesian troops over-loaded with equipment? Perhaps on a multi-day mission? Please forgive me for being pedantic and pretending to be the expert but those men should be approaching the chopper from the front at a forty-five degree angle.

 Multi-day operations paratroopers on demand their load for an extended mission greater and tailored as needed.

That Rhodesian military espousing and developing an entire and unique doctrine and methodology as established for counter-insurgency [COIN] operations as BEST suited to the totality of conditions.

An enemy unit of squad or platoon size located by intelligence units to include trackers or surveillance teams on the ground, that initial squad  heli-lifted to the target area, the mission to engage and pin down the adversary.

That additional two squads of Rhodesian infantry parachuting to a drop zone in the vicinity of the on-going fire fight, able to engage and destroy the insurgents, applying conventional infantry tactics to do so.

SOME OF THOSE RHODESIAN PARATROOPERS MAKING DOZENS OF COMBAT JUMPS, UNPRECEDENTED AND WITHOUT EQUAL!!

Fire Force to the extent as a military measure successful and should be recognized as such, the insurgents however eventually carrying the day, a negotiated settlement bringing an end to the war.

Please note also that I have it on very good authority the insurgent combat element in the Rhodesian Bush War were VERY POORLY TRAINED UNIFORMLY SO!!

 Fire Force might not have worked in Vietnam!

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Preucil.

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"We have a little bit of larceny it all of us boys" - - A. Capone.

Traitor, informer, thief, spy, murderer.

They don't get worse than that.

And all found in one man from the time of the Second World War.

Augustin Preucil. An odious character perhaps without peer during that conflict, his behavior and treachery undiminished in any way, an incorrigible individual lacking in any redeemable value.

As reported in the # 35 issue of "AFTER THE BATTLE" this item as copied in entirety:

"THE EVENING NEWS, TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1947"

"Spy in R.A.F. Shot His Pupil, Fled"

"STOLE PLANE"
"OVER BRITAIN"

'INSTRUCTOR TO DIE FOR TREASON'

"PRAGUE, Tuesday"

"A FORMER 33-year-old Czech-Slovak Air Force sergeant, Augustin Preucil shot his pupil, a Polish airman while serving as an instructor in Britain and escaped with the plane to Belgium."

"This was stated at Prague to-day, when the People's Court sentenced Preucil to death for treason."

"Preucil entered the service of the Gestapo as an informer at the beginning of the German occupation of Czecho-Slovakia."

"Sent to Poland"

"The Gestapo sent him to Poland, where he joined the Czech-Slovak Air Force, and went with it to France."

"From France he went to Britain, where he was given the job of training pilots. When he fled to Belgium he was hidden by Belgian patriots, who game him civilian clothes."

"From Belgium Preucil went to Berlin where he betrayed his Belgian helpers and gave away to his Gestapo several military secrets he had learned in Britain."

"He was then sent to Prague. There he gave the Gestapo information on Czecho-Slovak airmen in Britain, which led to the persecution of their families."

"Later he serve as a 'stool-pigeon' in Terezin concentration camp - - Reuters."

"Shot his pupil" and "Fled" says the headline but much more than that.

MUCH MORE!

Preucil sentenced to death and presumably executed, the article does not state the finality.

And as to the motivations of the man? Perhaps the Internet has further entries on Preucil?

That Terezin camp too a "model" concentration camp for Jews, used as a Potemkin village to fool international officials, including the International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC].

P.S. Here and here are several Internet entries on Preucil. Yes, he was executed, his motivations remain not so totally clear. His betrayals enormous. Terezin also seems to have been a camp for American POW. He also infiltrated the Theresienstadt concentration camp occupied by Jews and informed on them as was the forte' of the man. Is there anything Augustin did not do? That "AFTER THE BATTLE" article more than twenty years before the unmasking of Preucil by the Observer! Preucil I think too a man who relished his task, a perverse and terribly warped mentality Augustin taking a great pleasure in his betrayals, sadly so!.

coolbert.

Shelters!

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Here with unique German military architecture from that era of the Second World War [WW2].

Above ground air raid shelters.

Protection from the combined strategic allied bombing offensive.

Concrete structures very sturdily built, robust in the extreme. A nearby bomb detonating probably leaving the occupants of the shelter unscathed. Thick walls and even roofs affording the maximum protection for the general populace, munitions factory workers and vital governmental personnel.

Air raid shelters strictly defensive in nature and not to be confused with the flak tower. The later having an offensive capability form the anti-aircraft-artillery mounted on the roof.

Thanks to a variety of web sites for the images.

 

A small sized air raid shelter but still affording protection to those gathered inside.

 

 

 

This air raid shelter resembles a missile about to take off. And is reputed to have a capacity of 500 persons. The base described as also being reinforced. Even a nearby hit the population inside relatively out of danger, even totally impervious.

 

 

 

This is a flak tower for comparison. A battery of anti-aircraft artillery [AAA] and searchlights mounted on the roof. That interior also serving as an air raid shelter. The persons lounging on the grass in the lower right hand corner give you some sense of the scale. These structures even seventy years later cost prohibitive to demolish?

 

 

 

This particular structure of multi-stories could very well accommodate 18,000 persons crammed in like the proverbial "sardine".  Again, such a building so robustly build cost prohibitive to demolish?

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Albert Speer speaks of the allied [American and British] strategic bombing offensive during WW2 as causing great damage to the German war effort, he relates that a 1 million man army and impedimenta was needed to defend against the aerial onslaught.

That 1 million man army including in totality the day and night fighters, the fire fighting crews, the radar pickets and communication network, the air raid wardens, searchlight battery crews and AAA units, etc. Manpower again in totality and the resources as needed by same.

I might suggest resources and manpower to include the enormous quantities of concrete and those construction crews required to build these various bomb shelters.

I have also seen figures that the allied bombing offensive during WW2 resulted in one to two million German dead. This figure seems too HIGH to me. Devoted readers to the blog have a better "handle" on this? Let me hear from you.

coolbert.

Settled?

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As originally in The Economist and reprinted today in the Chicago Tribune, in entirety:

"For (Barack) Obama, this is a no-win situation. The only thing worse than missing a terrorist attack because an [a] NSA surveillance program had been blocked would be having the NSA leak that the terrorist attack was missed because you blocked their surveillance program. Now, having given the NSA what it said it needed to prevent any nasty surprises, he finds himself dealing with a different nasty surprise, the leak of the NSA program themselves. And that surprise has made the chances of accomplishing anything on the issues Obama really cares about - - health care, climate change, immigration reform, inequality - - more remote than ever. - -  The Economist."

Comments:

1. This IS SETTLED CASE LAW AND HAS BEEN FOR DECADES. For the government to obtain your phone records is NOT an invasion of privacy and again this has been the case for DECADES!

Who you called, when, and for how long has been deemed an open record and the government can obtain and does obtain your phone records.

2. What I would think is controversial is the volume and quantity of such records as being gathered. Indiscriminant it so seems and voluminous without almost measure. Phone calls, fax, e-mails, IM chat, etc.

3. And that the records are then being subjected, supposedly, to computer search using proprietary algorithms and protocols looking for unusual or suspect connections. As related to persons perhaps involved in terrorism.

4. This issue reminds me of TIA [Total Information Awareness]. Admiral Poindexter from Iran Contra fame/infamy [depending upon your perspective] having stated that in a notional and virtual city of 1 million persons, twenty or so terrorists residing in that virtual world, enough data collected and using computers with specific programs, algorithms and protocols, those twenty terrorists can be identified.

5. Also a problem [?] is the lack of awareness on the part of the general public as to the nature of the Internet and how it works. Two terrorist totally within the boundaries and confines of Pakistan having and Instant Messaging [IM] chat might have some of their communication electronic impulses pass through American routers, making those two Pakistani whether they realize it or not for the purposes of law "American persons". Again, such is the misunderstood nature of the Internet.

6. Also, keep in mind the pronouncements of Rabbi Akiva two thousand years ago: "During a time of war all laws may be set aside except for murder and apostasy".

Enough said on the topic.

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Three Technologies.

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Thanks to Colonel Austin Bay, the Telegraph and Victor Suvorov in all cases.

1. As elaborated upon by Colonel Bay in the aftermath of the Boston terrorist bombing:

"2013 Boston Terror's 19th-Century Roots"

"European anarchists in the late 19th century relied on three technologies to commit and then transform human massacre into international political terrorism: the railroad, improved explosives and the telegraph."

"for some 140 years, the world has yet to balance the benefits and threats of mobility and miniaturization."

Again those three technologies greatly facilitating terrorism as favored by anarchists and nihilists of the 19th century:

* The railroad.
* Improved explosives.
* Telegraph.

Transportation [railroad], means [explosives], and communications [telegraph].

Those three technologies in the modern era improved upon by magnitudes. The current analog technologies the jet airline [transportation], the Internet [communications] and Semtex [explosive].

Explosives available to the terrorist in the modern form even beyond ordinary Semtex or C4 [both of the plastic explosive variety] but to also include the ANFO [ammonium nitrate fuel oil] bomb or perhaps weapons of mass destruction to include nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological [NBCR].

2. ONLY from today these arrest having been made, persons with apparently aspiration planning terrorist attacks the intention to use model radio-controlled aircraft to do so:

 "Students 'planned terror attack using remote control planes'"

"Police have carried out raids in Germany and Belgium targeting a suspected Islamist plot by aeronautics students at the University of Stuttgart to use remotely controlled planes for a terrorist attack."

"Two of the suspected plotters were students in the aeronautics department at the University of Stuttgart, who were developing systems for using GPS to guide pilotless aircraft, according to the German public broadcaster SWR."

3. Finally, that suggestion that model radio-controlled aircraft might be used in a terrorist incident quite plausible. From 1987 as described by Suvorov:

"Chapter 15 SPETSNAZ'S FIRST WORLD WAR from the book by Suvorov 'SPETSNAZ'."

"On 12 August, at 0558 local time - - a van comes to a halt on that vast empty parking lot in front of a supermarket in Washington. Three men open the doors of the van, roll out the fuselage of a light aircraft and attach its wings. A minute later its motor bursts into life. The plane takes off and disappears into the sky. It has no pilot. It is controlled by radio with the aid of very simple instruments, only slightly more complicated than those used by model aircraft enthusiasts. The plane climbs to about 200 meters and immediately begins to descend in the direction of the White House. A minute later a mighty explosion shakes the capital of the United States. The screaming of sirens on police cars, fire engines and ambulances fills the city."

"Three minutes later a second plane sweeps across the center of the city and there is a second explosion in the place where the White House once stood. The second plane has taken off from a section of highway under construction, and has a quite different control system. Two cars with radio beacons in them have been left earlier in the middle of the city. The beacons have switched on automatically a few seconds before the plane's take-off. The automatic pilot is guided by the two beacons and starts to descend according to a previously worked-out trajectory. The second plane has been sent off by a second group operating independently of the first one."

Those 19th century terrorists of the ilk anarchist or nihilist too NOT wanting too many collateral damage casualties. Precautions taken to minimize those numbers of innocent bystanders killed or maimed. In marked contrast to the modern terrorist who is absorbed and pre-occupied with having AS MANY innocent bystanders and passers-by killed or wounded.

coolbert.

KO & SO.

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From issue Number 79 of "AFTER THE BATTLE" magazine we have this interesting item. KO & SO.

Brandenburgers we have heard of.

Brandenburgers during the Second World War [WW2], those German behind-the-lines special operations military units whose mission was coup de main or sabotage.

Wearing the uniform of the adversary and also able to speak the language of the enemy in a fluent manner, Brandenburgers troops predominantly manned with what were called Volksdeutsche.

KO and SO we have not heard of.

Apparently before there was Brandenburger there was KO and SO?

KO - -  KO-Groups (Kampforganisation) and SO - - SO-Groups (Sabotage-organization).

The former devoted to the coup de main mission.

The latter devoted to the sabotage mission.

"The KO-Groups were to prevent vital objectives being destroyed by the enemy while the So-Groups were to demolish or immobilize targets and objectives which were of prime importance to the enemy's defense."

KO & SO also consisting predominantly of Volksdeutsche. KO & SO performing their duty dressed as civilians the mission of which to be accomplished prior to commencement of overt hostilities.

KO & SO both in that fashion greatly resembling the modern Soviet/Russian spetsnaz during that period of "pink terror".

KO & SO units dressed as civilians BUT carrying their weapons openly and uniformly wearing a Nazi armband. From an authoritative source that wearing of the Nazi armband qualifying a KO & SO "troop" as a lawful combatant under the various conventions and laws of land warfare as they existed at the time.

That uniform wearing of the Nazi arm band does indeed qualify these men as lawful combatants! That officer in the center was a commander and controller but would not have accompanied his charges into battle!

KO & SO under the command of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. That Abwehr for whatever reason a hot bed of discontent against fascism and fascist methods.

Those officers in command of KO & SO units in some cases men of authority who were anti-Nazi, opposed to the regime of Adolf Hitler.

How so very ironic. Those troops initiating that combat of WW2 in the European theatre commanded by anti-Nazi officers!!

Let it be understood too that these officers, anti-Nazi, commanders and controllers of KO & SO, were not necessarily liberal democrats. Were for the most part in favor of a return to the autocratic and aristocratic rule as was the case in Germany prior to the First World War, the German Empire. Officers or the reactionary type and referred to as such by Hitler. Reactionary aristocrats such as the Austrian-Hungarian naval officer Von Trapp.

German special operations units finally for the most part merged into Skorzeny commando, firmly and without question under Nazi control.

coolbert.

Beach Landing.

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Here from the Number 96 edition of "AFTER THE BATTLE" magazine we have this interesting item as found in the article "THE GUNS OF VITI LEVU: [thanks to the author David Green]

"the Japanese were experienced in attacking and coastal forts from earlier conflicts taking Port Arthur  from the Chinese in 1894, and again from the Russians in 1905, and capturing Tsingtao from the German in 1914. In each case, the main contingent troops were landed away from the fort's striking distance, advancing to the rear and attacking the position from behind."

Correct! Frontal assaults against fortified and prepared beach defenses even when successful and the defenders overcome, quite often resulting in horrific or catastrophic casualties, the defender having in all cases a marked advantage.

The Japanese methodology to use an indirect approach where possible.

Indeed, during the Second World War [WW2] the Japanese possessing naval infantry [not marines] whose sole mission seems to be the capture of beach defenses during an amphibious operation.

Troops whose mission can best correctly be described as special operations type, training, equipment, selection of personnel and objectives the combat missions of which were short duration - - overwhelm the defender and capture of a beach as a prelude to a general landing.

That same methodology of using special purpose units during an amphibious landing could have been used with success during the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944?

American Range, British commando and troops from the First Special Service Force ["Devil's Brigade"] could have gone ashore at Normandy during hours of darkness, landing via rubber Zodiac style boat, attacking and killing those Germans manning the beach defenses, capturing vital terrain and greatly facilitating the approach and landing of the general invasion force?

Such to a degree was the suggestion [night assault] made by General Cota, deputy commander of the 29th Division, landing the first day on Omaha beach.

That advocacy [night assault] of General Cota not heeded, casualties among American troops at Omaha beach that day of 6 June very heavy, nearly catastrophic.

Omar Bradley at one point seriously considering a full withdrawal of all units engaged at Omaha, so dire was the situation.

Casualties at Omaha beach horrific and terrible, even worse than anticipated, furthermore that 352nd German infantry division manning the beach defenses at Omaha categorized as an "inferior" German division, capable of defensive operations only!!

Defense is the stronger form of combat, easier to do and more can be accomplished with less!

[The same was true during Jubilee at Dieppe [1942]. An inferior German unit armed with inferior weaponry able to give a very good account of itself when in mortal battle with the best combat arms units at the disposal of the British!!]

It is worth noting that the First Special Service Force [FSSF] was trained in small boat operations and had previously made a night small boat assault in the Aleutians securing the landing beaches most expeditiously. That FSSF also their most famous and successful mission the capture of Monte la Difensa during the Italian campaign, two hundred men in two hours able to do what twenty thousand men previously could not do in two weeks!!

Senior commanders at Normandy such as Bradley and Montgomery almost to the exclusion of other options ONLY in favor of the direct approach to amphibious assaults, that conventional commander not always seeing the advantage to the indirect and special operations type of assault?

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