Another good place for detailed reports on the Fallujah battle is Armor Geddon, where Lt. Neil Prakash has been documenting his armored platoon's actions in Fallujah. Fortunately for Lt. Prakash, but not so much for those of us wanting the rest of the story, he is currently rotated back to the land of Brat and Brau and so not posting so much.

Fascinating post, and yet more proof that our people out on the pointy end of the action are hardly the brainless cannon fodder portrayed by the lefties who "care about the troops" so much.

Of course, up until fairly recently I shared pretty much exactly the same view of the military. My embarrassment over that fact just keeps getting deeper and deeper.

You'd have to be young and invincible to want to do this for a living. God bless them all.

Is it wise to broadcast to your tactics and strategy, though? Surely our Marines will face this situation again. No need in giving the enemy the playbook.

Hell, that tactical summary could have been written by one of our colonels. THat's some excellent discussion of CQB tactics and enemy analysis.

Really, it's not just our equipment and technology. We have some of the best tacticians in the world on the ground in Iraq, and they're "just" NCOs.

Injenuity, thy name is the US Marine Corps:

“House Guest” (Named by 2nd squad, 1st platoon, I Company) – Propane tanks placed in the central hallway with C-4 used to ignite it, creates a fuel air explosive – Used for bringing down a house when contact is made inside, propane tanks must be full

Our guys are the smartest in the world, by far. I've had sergeants work for me pursuing their Ph.D.s

And when it comes to thinking about warfare, the Marines do it best (and I say that as an Air Force puke).

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

A fine pickup, ACE. A lot of people think the enemy are stupid - they are not - fortunately the US troops respect that ingenuity from the enemy and learn faster. That AAR was a prime example - well written and it gets diffused fast to other Marines, though unfortunately not as easily to penetrate the Army's bureaucracy.

Some of the shortfalls cannot be corrected quickly - there is still that supply and procurement cycle fucking with frontline troops despite diligent efforts to fix it, necessitating improvisation in weapons - but while the ability to improvise is a huge strength, the less Marines are forced to do so, is optimum.

A shortage of shotgun ammo hindered breaching operations???? That sort of problem in a long-planned assault is an error or system problem. Elsewhere, in other reports, Marines complained about a shortage of shotguns themselves - and shotguns are invaluable in urban fighting. The Hellfire not being "ballsy" enough to take out a house of enemy and fixed wing air being ineffective for delay and safe ordnace distance opening gaps between troops and enemy allowing escape are tactical discoveries that Marines will hopefully act on.

Not discussed here but brought up elsewhere is the use of dogs to detect enemy troops. The Marines and Army have largely abandoned "war dogs" while retaining guard dogs - and they may wish to reconsider that and put dogs into the urban combat mix to help save soldiers lives.

"House Guest" -- I love it!

That's 100% accurate about our sergeants. Our NCOs are the glue of our great military.

And Pat?

THe "playbook" as you say can be disseminated far and wide. When executed properly, there's really no way to prevent a military assault with limited troops.

Thermopylae happened not because of a superior plan, but because of superior geography. Keeping the jihadis off-balance, even when they know they're being kept off-balance, doesn't change the safety equasion for our troops. THe urban insurgent has two options: (1)die in place and hope to take as many out as you can (not real helpful in light of the "Houseguest"); or (2) run (whether out of fear or as part of a strategic retreat) and hope you're not tagged in the back.

Simply put, so long as the jihadis are defending isolated buildings and cannot concentrate their forces (lest a JDAM rain down upon them) they're defending the indefensible.

What I couldn't figure out is how they deliver the "houseguest". I'm a pretty big fellow and I can throw a full propane tank just far enough to avoid crushing my toes.

This really brings home just how dangerous this type of warfare really is, and how evenly matched we both are: brains and power v. fanatism.

As Pat wrote:

You'd have to be young and invincible to want to do this for a living. God bless them all.

Very good read. NCOs in our military are equivilant to Officers in any other countries military. As for the OPSEC concerns, they are legit. Though given the fact that terrorist networks have been fighting and training for unsupported urban warfare for many years, the speed with which this information is dessiminated to our Combat Arms troops is of a higher priority. Jihadis have had the benefit of training and equipment from exSoviet Spetz Naz and Warsaw Pact troops since '89 and the breakup of the formal military structure in those countries. We, as a country, have been under the false impression that terrorists are just a bunch of goatherders with a religious chip on their shoulders. In the last 3 years we have been disabused of that illusion. Many in the SpecWar community have been trying to tell people this for years, nobody wanted to listen. I think undivided attention is now being payed, AT LAST.

Sgt Catagnus, the articles main writer, is a close personal friend. The two of us operated together multiple times through out Fallujah. The house guest was started because we were taking large amounts of casualties coming into door one, sitting room, so door two always opened into the kitchen. As the teams demo expert I probably set two hundered "House Guests". The main concept of modern urban battle is now: Why expose soft flesh when we have other assests? One asset is the Armys DC9 armored bulldozer. Ounce we took fire from a house the bulldozer was called up to simply destroy the house with insurgents still inside. M1 Abrams main battle gun was also used on multiple occounts to clear the known enemy houses. The enemy is severly smart and cunning. They are not mindless third world indiots as is depicted by media and public opinion. A sniper team from 2/1 that assulted the city in April 04 reported over thirty kills with the bolt gun in a single day. When 3/5 re-entered the city we expected the same high rate of insurgents doing alley runs. By the fourth day in the city we had three kills with the bolt gun, all were closer than three hundred yards. Addaptation is the enemies greatest weapon. As is the same for the US. Some of the new tactics we encountered that 2/1 had not seen include tunel systems between alleys and houses. Houses stacked with 155 artillary shells, booby trapped for Marine entry. At night when we went firm the insurgents would load the cars in the city with explosives, set the fuse, wedge the gas pedal and aim the car at buildings Marines accupied. The die hard extremists had pre tied tourniquets on their arms and legs and were doped out with adrenaline shots and epinephrine. I personally was amazed to watch insurgents I had blatently shot in the head stand back up and fight for another five to ten minutes.

"If you need a city destroyed and it absolutely has to be done over night, US MARINES"