Archives: Gazette Magazines

by 1stLt Kenneth P. Sullivan

It was just like any other Thursday night on duty at an enlisted barracks: Marines scrambling to get back for evening formation, one forgetting about his fire-watch shift, and one Marine had even broken into another’s room to ensure it was clean for Friday morning’s field day inspection. All were simple hiccups in a normal shift of duty. Then PFC Hood (whose name has been changed to protect his identity) came into the duty hut asking to speak to me. Visibly trembling, he said he thought he was having an anxiety attack. I instructed Hood to take my seat and relax as I pulled up a loose chair.

I learned that Hood had been medically dropped from his MOS school two weeks prior and placed in a Marines Awaiting Training (MAT) platoon. Being a salty 11-month veteran of MAT platoon at TBS, I thought I might be able to relate to his situation. Hood had a plethora of administrative and medical issues preventing him from continuing to train. A back condition known as ankylosing spondylitis, in which different parts of the spine can fuse together, caused his medical drop from the course two weeks earlier.

To add to this, Hood is a Reservist who was sent to his unit and placed in “Reserve” status upon completion of Marine Combat Training but continued to receive active duty pay until reporting to MOS school three months later. In order to balance his overpayment, the Marine Corps had not given Hood a paycheck in two months. With this mounting stress, he had not slept in the past 48 hours.

What bothered Hood most that night, however, was the lack of discipline of his fellow MAT platoon members. “It’s like they forgot everything we learned at phase III of boot camp. One kid even wore headphones to formation tonight,” Hood choked out, his hands shaking uncontrollably, while his right foot tapped a fortissimo rhythm. “I just want to stand in front of the platoon and put them all on blast for forgetting what it means to be a Marine.”

Hood opened up more as I inquired about his home life and why he joined the Marine Corps. Like many Marines, he came from a troubled past. His mother had left him at a young age, and his father sold drugs when an accident prevented him from working. Hood craved the discipline and direction the Marine Corps provided him. When he dropped from his MOS school, however, he was no longer challenged intellectually, his days consisting of repeatedly cleaning equipment and rooms at the schoolhouse where he used to train.

I had been faced with a similar circumstance after fracturing my left fibula awaiting the start of my MOS school. Without much structured class to challenge me, I was fortunate to find resolution with a few other lieutenants who were motivated to continue their education despite physical setback. One such Marine had the will of a lion and the resultant leg bone structure of Mar- vel’s Wolverine. My partner in crutches had suffered a spiral fracture on his right tibia during a fast-roping exercise out of an MV-22 Osprey a year prior to my accident. During his 20-month recovery before finally conquering his MOS school, he worked at Marine Corps University (MCU) developing decisionforcing cases (DFCs) and teaching them at TBS. Following in his case method footsteps at MCU, I used the experience of developing and teaching cases under the tutelage of a passionate and welleducated MCU staff to focus myself intellectually at a time when I could not train physically.

I thought that teaching Flood a decision-forcing case might trigger academic interest in a Marine craving structure. Since Flood had never heard of DFCs, let alone tactical decision games (TDGs), I decided to start Hood with a simple TDG. After delivering a well-thought-out plan of how to attack an enemy platoon on a hilltop, Hood inquired, “So what’s the right answer?” I explained the difference between TDGs and DFCs, wherein he replied despondently that he would like to know what actually happened. I then opened a case, Di Notte, developed from an Army after-action report written at The Infantry School, Fort Benning, G A. Di Notte is about 1LT Augustine MacDonald leading Company I, 350th Infantry Regiment, 88th Infantry Division in a night attack against a fortified ridgeline in the Apennine Mountains in 1944 Nazi-occupied Italy.

Two of the firewatch Marines joined Hood as audience members for Di Notte. There was much contention of how the three participants, as “lieutenants,” wanted to attack Hill 538. Each had a different plan and sound tactical thought to justify. After lively debate, I finally revealed how 1LT MacDonald had conducted his attack 70 years prior. All three Marines who participated had tremendous buy in to the case (the firewatch Marines stayed in the duty hut to discuss the case well after their shifts ended), but PFC Hood was especially interested in the entire process. I then showed Hood the method of how we found and developed Di Notte from an after-action report.

Most cases do not just manifest themselves for a reader. They require an active hunt through stories, books, and after-action reports. While not every hunt leads to a case, the process is, in and of itself, beneficial. Understanding how to develop DFCs imbues the reader with an active mind, allowing him to absorb the experiences of the character to whom he is exposed. The hunter just needs a spark to ignite his curiosity and an understanding of the process to fuel his case development. We provided that spark on a Thursday night in a Marine barracks duty hut. It peaked Hood’s interest, allowing him to detach from his own shaking boots, embody himself in those of a company commander who undoubtedly felt anxiety 70 years ago, losing communication with one platoon at the culminating moments of his near-dawn attack.

The conduct of the decision-forcing case both relaxed and excited Hood, his anxiety transforming to anticipation with each movement of Company I’s graphic on the map. His hands no longer trembled; his foot no longer shook. Hood was able to sleep that night (we selected his room for the 0200 random room search). We can only hope the spark provided by Di Notte, and the direction of the MCU staff that one duty officer was able to impart to a PFC provided enough fuel to create another hunter of cases.

By Maj Roberto Scribner& 2ndLt Patrick Terhune

The current approach to teaching and executing the enemy’s most likely course of action (EMLCOA) analysis at the company grade officer level is flawed because it allows cognitive traps to stifle empathy and creative thought. A new methodology is required that eliminates those traps and provides an improved framework for envisioning how the interactively complex system made up of enemy forces, friendly forces, terrain, missions, and moral factors act in a particular time and space. Mirror-imaging-the assumption that the subjects being studied think, process information, and see the world in the same way as the analyst-is perhaps the most common cognitive trap in conducting EMLCOA analysis. The Basic School (TBS) trains company grade officers to develop an EMLCOA by “turning the map around” and “putting themselves in the enemy’s shoes.” Using METT-TC (mission, enemy, terrain and weather, troops and fire support available, time, civilian considerations) analysis, lieutenants and captains predict the enemy’s mission; how they will try to achieve that mission with past, current, and future actions ; and how they will react to contact.1 The current methodology leads to order-writers reflecting the actions that they as Marine officers would take if placed in the same situation as the enemy, rather than how the enemy, who does not think and act like a Marine officer, will act.

Training documents state that the EMLCOA is critical because it is central to the development of the center of gravity/critical vulnerability (COG/CV) and the scheme of maneuver (SOM).2 Additionally, the EMLCOA is the first creative narrative the junior officer presents in the operations order, making it highly in>Maj fluential to subordinates. In reality, our focus group research showed that the EMLCOA is part of a self-referential decisionmaking loop because the orderwriter has already chosen a preferred SOM to which the enemy will react to write the EMLCOA (see Figure 1). The order-writer develops a SOM based on the EMLCOA, and the EMLCOA is based on a SOM that the writer already has in mind while conducting the METT-TC. Our focus groups showed that the current approach to teaching and developing EMLCOAs (hereafter termed “EMLCOA 1.0”) leads to a middle-of-the-road approach that ascribes insufficient agency to the enemy, resulting in poorly developed analysis that falls into multiple cognitive traps. EMLCOA 2.0 is a focus group-tested methodology for teaching and conducting EMLCOA development using redteaming techniques that vastly improves the breadth and depth of analysis as well as eliminaring mirror-imaging and greatly expanding how junior officers think about the enemy.

The authors administered the included tactical decision game (TDG) (see p. 47) to 23 second lieutenants indoctrinated in EMLCOA 1.0 development at TBS.3 When initially instructed to develop an EMLCOA, the responses showed remarkable similarity with only two respondents deviating slightly from the norm by assuming that the enemy would send out patrols. The following paragraph contains the elements with 75 percent or greater commonality from the respondents’ EMLCOA 1.0 and divides the EMLCOA 1.0 into three statement sets, [SI] through [S3]:

[Si] l’he enemy is a .squad-sized element of Centralian Revolutionary Forces (CRF) [S2] set up near the top of Hill 293 buc within 300 meters of North Bridge to ensure the bridge is in AK-74 range.4 The enemy’s mission is to keep us from crossing North Bridge. They’re dug in about chestdeep in a semicircular battle position oriented east toward the bridge. Their PKM (medium machine gun) has a principal direction of fire (PDF) on the bridge. The 50mm mortar is ser up on the military crest opposite the bridge on Hill 293. They’re at 25 percent security. They have a two-man listening post/observation post (LP/ OP) on Hill 74 to watch their southern flank. [S3] Right now they’re eating chow and improving their defensive positions. When we attack tonight they’ll be at 25 percent security and will defend fiercely until they take 25 percent casualties, at which time they will withdraw to the west to link up with their parent unit.

All respondents stated that they had developed a preferred SOM prior ro EMLCOA 1.0 development.5 The respondents then consciously or unconsciously structured the enemy’s actions to serendipitously allow for the platoon’s use of a combined arms attack that maximized the use of indirect fire and automatic weapons. Additionally, the officers based the EMLCOA 1.0 on what they would do if they we rein charge oí a Marine squad given the enemy’s task, which they took to be countering the preferred friendly SOM that they had already imposed on the situation. Respondents mirrorimaged and ignored the likelihood that the CRF could maneuver through the swamp trails, would be unlikely to place themselves in the perfect position for the Marines to conduct a combined arms attack, and that the squad did not have to maneuver as a unit. The following analysis examines each statement set.

In [Si], respondents assumed the CRF squad acted as a single unit, maintaining centralized command and control to maximize mass and simplicity because that is how they are taught to employ it. The respondents ascribed the characteristics of a Marine squad to the enemy. In [S2], the respondents took their preferred SOM and created a scenario where the enemy, imbued with the characteristics of a Marine rifle squad, responded to that SOM. If the respondents commanded a Marine squad placed in the enemy’s situation, they would look for an obstacle where they could bring all their firepower to bear on a canalized enemy while maintaining standoff to protect themselves. Hill 293 fits these criteria. Because there are only two crossing points and the platoon may not be able to traverse the swamp in the time available, the enemy will be at North Bridge because that is where the platoon will be. In [S3], 25 percent security ensures that Marines man the automatic weapons at all times and that the unit gets adequate sleep. The respondents’ training teaches them to go to 100 percent security at end evening nautical twilight and begin morning nautical twilight, and since the platoon is attacking at night, the CRF will be at 25 percent security, per Marine standing operating procedures. The CRF are conducting the continuing actions taught to the respondents. The enemy will fight, of course, but the respondents believe from their casualty evacuation exercises that four injured Marines likely triggers abort criteria since manpower is consumed by carrying the wounded or dead. Thus, once the enemy sustains a similar casualty ratio, they will cease fighting while they arc still capable of withdrawing.

To achieve better EMLCOA analysis, mirror-imaging must be eliminated; the enemy must be ascribed the appropriate level of agency to do what is most effective for its own ends; and moral, psychological, and emotional states of the actors on the battlefield must be taken into account. Ehe EMLCOA 2.0 methodology evolved through experimentation and multiple failures, and is based on two key principles:

* The discourse of analysis itself is tremendously important. We found that it was critical to force the analyst to use the personal pronoun as the enemy leader when conducting analysis. Using”!” instead of “they” changed how willing the respondents were to ascribe agency to the enemy and develop courses of action that would defeat the friendly forces. In the words of one focus group member, “When you say ‘I’ and make yourself the enemy squad leader, it makes you want to win.”

* The enemy wants to win. Previous versions of the methodology failed in focus groups because respondents wanted the friendly forces to win more than they wanted to conduct a creative analysis that allowed for the possibility of enemy success. The first principle assists in breaking this bias, but it was critical to unfetter the respondents’ strong desires to limit the agency of the enemy to be as effective as possible. We overcame this by developing a step in the methodology where the respondent is directed to make the friendly unit fail in the most unpredictable way they can think of.

EMLCOA 2.0 can be accused of being a way to develop an enemy’s most dangerous course of action (EMDCOA) vice EMLCOA. EMLCOA 2.0 assigns intelligence and agency to the enemy, assuming that the enemy will take those actions that best lead to success as defined by that enemy. We argue that in a contest of wills that can lead to death, the enemy will do their utmost to win; to think that they will do any less is disingenuous. This may result in a merging of EMDCOA and EMLCOA, and we feel that this is completely acceptable. It is important to remember that conducting EMLCOA analysis does not excuse the analyst from understanding how the enemy’s doctrine may shape or constrain action and decisions. Doctrine can supersede creativity, and the analyst must understand when this is the case for a particular opponent.

EMLCOA 2.0 Process

When to use. This analysis should be conducted after the METT-TC process is complete.

Process narrative. This analysis will force the order-writer to look at how the enemy sees the friendly unit via a modified “Four Wtys of Seeing.”6 The writer will use this information to develop an enemy estimate of the friendly SOM. This method emphasizes gaining an understanding of how the enemy sees the friendly unit’s approach to solving the problem. The order-writer develops a narrative of how the enemy counteracts the friendly unit’s SOM in the most unpredictable way imaginable. Lastly, the order-writer writes a first-person narrative from the perspective of the enemy unit leader that begins 24 hours prior to contact with the friendly unit and ends 12 hours after contact. The first-person narrative continually forces the orderwriter to abandon mirror-imaging and identify with the enemy commander. Extending the preaction and postac- tion timeframes accounts for a major portion of the enemy’s planning cycle at the small unit level.

The method. (Note: When conducting EMLCOA 2.0 analysis, the “enemy” is the unit to which you, the analyst, belong. In the TDG, that makes the analyst the CRF squad leader and the “enemy” the Marine platoon.)

Step 1. Complete the METT-TC analysis.

Step 2. Using the pronoun “I” or “we,” write down how you, the unit commander, see yourself and your unit. Focus on how you view your strengths and weaknesses. Explore strengths and weaknesses that are physical, tactical, moral, psychological, and emotional. Think about your fears and what your unit can do well and what it does poorly.

Sample responses from the focus groups: We are light, fast, dedicated, and know the terrain well, especially the swamp near the south bridge. Although ive lack heavy weapons or the ability to deliver indirect fire, we have excellent patrolling and reconnaissance skills and can skillfully execute an ambush. We can melt away and appear anywhere we want. Were comfortable operating in smaller units without a lot of direction. We don’t want to die and since there are not many of us, we want to live to fight another day. We’d rather cause minor damage and then withdraw a hundred times vice standing andfighting and giving you a chance to use your superior firepower. We don t have to follow any RGBs [rides of engagement]’, so we can take the most effective actions without worrying about being investigated. I’m fighting on my home turf and I have to live here after you ‘re gone, so I care more. God is on my side and we deserve to win. My family and friends support me 100 percent in what I’m doing and I don’t want to let them down. If I fail, my family may suffer consequences from the invaders.

Step 3. Using the pronouns “you” or “they,” write down how you see the enemy you are fighting. Focus on how you view their strengths and weaknesses. Explore strengths and weaknesses that are physical, tactical, moral, psychological, and emotional. Think about their lears, and what they can do well and what they do poorly.

Sample responses from the focus groups: You are well-equipped andphysically tough fighters who understand techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs). You have capabilities we don’t even know about or understand. Your ability to call for indirect fire or air support gives you a huge advantage. You have excellent communications equipment that allows you to talk to each other over long distances. You have a platoon and we have a squad. You have better weapons than we do. You. carry too much stuff and this makes you move slowly and noisily. You’re very concerned with casualties and this makes you cautious and leads you to try to use the biggest guns you havefirst. Your night vision capabilities are excellent, but you think that because you have them that you have an advantage at night. You like to stay close to another friendly unit, road, or landing zone in case you have casualties or you need help. You have restrictive ROEs and worry a lot about how to follow them instead of just fighting the most effective way possible. You’re leaving when you’re done fighting, so you care less than I do. You miss your families and you’d rather be back with them than out here fighting me. You can show up anywhere by using helicopters. You have a couple of ways of doing things and you stick to them, even when the situation says that you should do something new or different. You publish all your TTP on the Internet so I can read them.

Step 4. Compare the results of step 2 and step 3 and note areas in which you think you have an advantage. Use the pronoun “I.”

For example: I have speed, better reconnaissance capabilities, stealth, and better ambush TTP. I operate well in fire teams or smaller units, so I in more mobile. I have the ability to function with missiontype orders and limited communications. 1 am not dependent on outside forces. I want to win more than you do because this is my home.

Step 3. Compare the results of step 2 and step 3 and note all places where the enemy may have the advantage. Use the pronouns “you” or “they.”

For example: You have firepower, indirect fire capability, communications technology, night vision, inter- and intraunit coordination, and much bigger unit size. You can use helicopters and vehicles to show up in unexpectedplaces very quickly.

Step 6. Based on the relative mismatches you sec in steps 4 and 3, draw or write down the SOM that you believe the enemy unitwill execute. Continually reference steps 2 to 3 to ensure that the SOM you arc building fits your previous analysis.

Step 7- Based on steps 2 and 4, which gave you how you view yourself, and step 6, the probable enemy SOM from your perspective, sketch out your plan to cause the enemy mission failure in the most unpredictable way you can think of. You can either write it step-by-step or draw it graphically on a map.

Step 8. Take a few minutes and create a movie in your head of how the SOM you developed in step 7 unfolds. Write a first-person narrative (a story) from your perspective on how the plan you came up with in step 7 unfolded. Begin 24 hours prior to making any contact and end 12 hours after making contact. This narrative is your EMLCOA.

Results

EMLCOAs using the EMLCOA 2.0 methodology exhibited a variety of creative, highly effective, and plausible solutions. All were different from the EMLCOA 1.0 analysis produced by the same focus group participants. Almost all focus group participants immediately destroyed the northern bridge, stating that the enemy needed the bridge but that the CRT did not. Several participants destroyed both bridges. Some destroyed both bridges and then waited to bait and destroy a potential heliborne force by either setting up ambushes in, or mining, landing zones. Those that did not initially destroy the northern bridge destroyed it later with a small team or explosives while the enemy crossed the bridge, splitting the enemy forces, which were then attrited through ambushes. Great care was taken to ensure that when direct combat occurred, the CRF undertook mitigation of enemy fire support assets. This varied from using terrain to keeping the enemy within the 60mm mortar effective casualty radius while fighting and then breaking contact in multiple directions. Participants broke their squad into hunter-killer teams to harass the enemy, laid ambushes, and used the swamp to maneuver into the enemy’s rear to strike. Several participants attempted a spoiling attack on the enemy’s assembly area or used attacks from the rear to force the enemy to pursue small teams into the swamp. Two participants independently developed versions of Che Guevara’s guerrilla “minuet.” The use of ruses abounded. Participants lit fires in various areas to either draw attention or to neutralize enemy night vision capabilities. One participant lit the northern forest on fire and then destroyed both bridges.

Focus group members made significant leaps in their analytical capabilities expressing and incorporating highly advanced concepts that they had not been previously exposed to such as important elements of systems thinking. Respondents stated that using EMLCOA 2.0 forced them to sec that there were multiple ways to interpret each element on the battlefield. In speaking about the northern bridge, one respondent stated:

Ic had more meanings [during EMLCOA 2.0], and [the meaning] just depended on how I looked at it. I could really jack up the Marines if 1 made the bridge mean something different to me than them and surprise the hell out of [the Marines].

The parallels between this and other like responses from our locus groups and then-BGen Aviv Kokhavi’s’s now classic discussion of conceptualizing space is instructive as to how creative junior officers can be when they are truly allowed to think:

This space that you look at, this room that you look at, is nothing but your interpretation of it. Now, you can stretch the boundaries of your interpretation, but not in an unlimited fashion, after all, it must be bound by physics, as it contains buildings and alleys. The question is, how do you interpret the alley? Do you interpret the alley as a place, like every architect and every town planner does, to walk through, or do you interpret the alley as a place forbidden to walk through? This depends only on interpretation. We interpreted the alley as a place forbidden to walk through, and the door as a place forbidden to pass through, and the window as a place forbidden to look through, because a weapon awaits us in the alley, and a booby trap awaits us behind the doors. This is because the enemy interprets space in a traditional, classical manner, and I do not want to obey this interpretation and fall into his traps. Not only do I not want to fall into his traps, I want to surprise him!”

Red-teaming methodologies must fundamentally and forcefully unhinge the accepted reality of the analyst to allow the viewing of a situation from a different frame of reference. EMLCOA 2.0 is an attempt to create a sufficient break with perceived reality for the company grade order-writer. It is necessarily simple because most company grade officers lack full-fledged intelligence cell support are often tasked with rapid mission planning cycles due to their place at the end ol larger unit planning cycles. EMLCOA 2.0 effectively creates empathy for the enemy’s point of view and capabilities, allowing company grade officers to quickly and effectively develop an EMCLOA without falling into cognitive traps. Focus group participants universally developed a better conceptualization of how the enemy might fight the Marine forces. At a deeper level, focus group participants increased the complexity and depth oí their thinking about the relationship of the elements on the battlefield and began to visualize these elements as part of a nonlinear, interactively complex system. Their EMLCOAs reflected enemy solutions to the problem that went beyond the mere application oí firepower and movement to space and time evidenced in EMLCOA 1.0 and encompassed psychological and moral factors in creative ways.

By Damien O’Connell

Situation

You are the platoon commander of 3d Platoon (foot-mobile), Fox Company, Battalion Landing Team 2d Battalion, 1st Marines, 11th MEU. Last month, after completing operations in Nangarhar Province, the MEU was sent to support NATO forces in B armai District of neighboring Paktika Province. Two weeks ago, B armai District witnessed dozens of small-scale battles. The fighting has claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians, most of them victims of NATO air and artillery strikes. Because of this, several once pro-NATO villages have begun providing the Taliban with intelligence, supplies, and even men.

Your battalion commander finds this situation alarming and wants to strengthen relations between his Marinesand the remaining pro-NATO villages in the battalion area of responsibility. To this end, he has sent each of his companies to billet on the edge of – or if granted permission, within – a large pro-NATO village. Each company has the same mission: protect the villagers and improve their quality of life. Your company was assigned to Soor.

When Fox Company arrived in Soor, your company commander met with the village elders. Impressed by his knowledge of Pashto (and promises of food and medical supplies), they invited the Marines to stay in the village. A few days later, an Afghan National Army (ANA) infantry platoon arrived to augment your force and facilitate cooperation between the Marines and villagers. Consisting of three light infantry squads, the Afghan platoon is highly motivated but knows only the most rudimentary skills of soldiering, and except for its Soviet-era weapons, it is poorly equipped. The Afghan soldiers lack body armor and night vision devices.

Since the Marines came to Soor, the village and its environs have been free of enemy activity. The villages where your sister companies are stationed, however, have seen daily (and sometimes nightly) company-sized attacks by the Taliban. Often poorly coordinated, the attacks have cost the enemy hundreds of dead, the Marines dozens, and the villagers few.

Today you and your men spent the afternoon instructing the Afghan infantry platoon in ambush techniques. With the training over, your platoon began readying itself for a night patrol. Then, around 1700, you received new orders from your company commander. “Lieutenant,” he began, “we just received word from battalion: 20 minutes ago an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) discovered a convoy of 8 pickup trucks a few hours northeast of here. Intel says they’re Taliban, about 50 in number, who came across the border from Pakistan sometime this morning. The trucks appear to be carrying at least a dozen crew-served weapons. And there’s a good chance that the leader of Taliban forces in Barmal District is among the passengers. Higher headquarters wants the convoy taken out for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, we won’t have the aid of the UAS. It’s been sent to help friendly forces caught in an ambush. Now because there are so few good roads in the area, the convoy must pass through Checkpoint Chesty, about 3!/2 klicks northeast of Soor. Ambush it there. I’m giving you three assault teams and a machinegun squad (two teams) for the mission. Since you just finished training the ANA platoon in ambush techniques, I’m sending two of their squads along. You also get the forward air controller (FAC). Two Cobras (AH-IW) are on call, so if you need them, they’re there. At its present rate the convoy should reach the checkpoint a little over an hour from now. As you know, the terrain between here and there is relatively flat and easy to travel, so you should have plenty of time to set up the ambush. Move out within 15 minutes.”

You give a quick patrol order to your subordinate leaders, conduct final equipment checks, and move out. You deploy your force in column formation, with the assault teams, machineguns teams, and ANA squads interspersed between your three rifle squads. 1st Squad is on point.

As the lead elements of the ambush force near Checkpoint Chesty, you hear explosions coming from Soor. You try contacting your company commander on the radio, but he does not respond. You then direct the FAC to check with the battalion air officer. The FAC does so and learns that Soor is taking heavy mortar fire. To make matters worse, the FAC informs you that at least two groups of Taliban (strength unknown) are moving to assault the village from the southwest. Just then, 1st Squad radios in. They report seeing 13 vehicles in the distance. The convoy is fast approaching. Night is falling. What now, Lieutenant?

Requirement

Within 5 minutes, give your solution in the form of a frag order to your subordinates. Be sure to include your intent, an overlay sketch of your plan, and the rationale for your decision.

> Editors Note: This TDG was originally submitted by Damien O’Connell with comments and suggestions by Bruce Gudmundsson and Timothy Jackson.

Situation

You were the 11th MEU S-3A (assistant operations officer) but have been reassigned as the team leader of an advisor/liaison team assigned to 15 th Afghan Infantry Battalion. Approximately 4 months ago the MEU was sent to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in support of NATO forces during Operation ENDURING Freedom. The 15th Afghan Battalion completed basic training prior to your arrival. At this point in their training, they can conduct limited independent operations at the company level and often require coalition assistance for vehicle maintenance, logistics planning, and operational planning. The 15th Battalion’s area of operations is a stretch of land between Jalalabad and Kabul, the regional home of the 15th. Their primary mission has been interdiction of Taliban and insurgent weapons and personnel between Kabul and Jalalabad.

Last night 2d Company conducted a night ambush of an insurgent convoy. You were in Kabul with the battalion commander coordinating a resupply and maintenance budget for the battalion’s vehicles. You assigned your staff sergeant who is a subject matter expert in helicopter observations to observe the company’s ambush, a mission he has done before. The 2d Company has small arms capability similar to a Marine rifle company; however, its communications and night vision equipment is limited. The following morning, the 2d Company returned to the battalion headquarters riding in what you suspect are captured vehicles. You attend the company commander’s debrief to his battalion commander and members of his staff. Following are the company commander’s comments:

“My rifle company, with two medium machinegun teams and two assault teams attached (armed with rocket propelled grenades), was ordered to conduct a night ambush on a known enemy supply route. As the company commander, I had a night vision monocular. We did bring trip flares and six antitank mines along with several antipersonnel pressure mines. Our communications net enabled me to speak with my battalion headquarters and locally to each platoon leader.

“Intelligence reports indicated that enemy supplies are transported by trucks with the occasional armed jeep or light armored car acting as an escort. The trucks generally have an infantry platoon (minus) as local security as well. Convoys are six to eight vehicles long.

“The company was dropped off by helicopters (provided by the MEU aviation combat element) at Landing Zone Bravo at 0135, some 5 kilometers from the ambush site. The terrain was mountainous, with rocky outcroppings and low scrub. Nighttime temperatures were near or below freezing. The unit marched in column, keeping to a counterlevel below the crest, to the ambush site. Once there a platoon conducted a reconnaissance and then we assumed the fighting positions as outlined on this map. We kept radio talk to a minimum using runners or chemical light signals when able. While it was still dark, the enemy convoy approached from the village as anticipated. No jeeps or armored cars were visible from my position.

“The convoy entered the kill zone, and the company opened fire with the headquarters initiating the ambush. The enemy was hard pressed to react, but some of the infantry managed to return fire aided by a heavy machinegun (HMG) from a jeep in the middle of the convoy, but then they were overwhelmed. We suffered only four lightly wounded, one seriously wounded, and one killed in action.

“While medical attention was given to the wounded, we conducted a quick sweep of the enemy in search of items of intelligence value. We found none but did notice we destroyed a jeep with HMG. Following this search, we discovered that most of the vehicles were still operational. We cancelled the scheduled helicopter extract and returned with a large motor pool. We left the mines in place in the hopes the enemy might set them off later when picking up their dead.”

After hearing the last sentence you glance over at your staff sergeant, who smiles and nods. This is your signal that he did not know that the mines were left in place. He also tilted his head slightly, an indication that the company commander is telling the truth as far as he could observe.

The company commander turns to you and asks, “The mission was clearly a success. Don’t you agree, Captain?”

Requirement

In a time limit of 10 minutes, write what you would say in front of the battalion staff and what you would say privately to the battalion and company commanders. Describe what actions you would take. Be prepared to provide a rationale for your comments and provide a sketch if you believe that the concept of operations should be different.

Issues for Consideration

1. Would you critique the mission in front of the battalion commander, pull the company commander aside, or a combination? Why?

2. In regard to the minefield, what is your team’s responsibility in this matter?

3. What are some ways that the Afghan battalion can defeat the Kajura population’s will to resist government rule?

4. Will the action of 2d Company help defeat the enemy resolve? Explain?

5. Do the actions of 2d Company further the objectives of the MEU commander? Explain.

6. What do you do if you find out the convoy that 2d Company ambushed was a local militia vice Taliban or alQaeda?

Situation

You are Baz Dagar. You are 45 years old and fought with the mujahideen when the Soviets came across the mountains. You were running guns for Sher Dil when the Americans roared up the valley in armored vehicles last month, just like the Soviets in 1981. You are the fifth son of Dagar and have little chance of becoming the patriarch of your fatherâeuro(TM)s Tajik enclave in the northern end of the valley. Thatâeuro(TM)s why you decided to help Sher Dil. Since the 1970s, the Soviets came and left, and then the Americans pushed out the Taliban. When the Americans left the Rahadnak, the Taliban came back. Though you are not interested in where the guns are going or whether the Taliban come back, one thing is for certain, working for Sher Dil has given you prestige that being the fifth son of Dagar never could have afforded.

Over the past month the militia who stood and fought were cut down by the Americans. If Allah wills it, it is of no importance to you, but the fields were destroyed. An illumination mortar round burned your uncleâeuro(TM)s house to the ground. In response to this, you called on some of the younger Tajiks in the north to come down to Ada, where a platoon of Americans has been staying. You have heard that the Nuristani in Atah are upset with the Americans, who are trying to appease the Kushtuz majority in the province. You sent your nephews to spray paint graffiti in Ada Atah about the godless Americans plowing under the poppies because their masters see opium as competition for American drug dealers. Some Nuristani teenagers you met at the gas station on the Jalalabad road agree to help you if you can prove you have Sher Dilâeuro(TM)s blessing. The only problem is that no one has seen him since before the Americans came back last month.

Five fighters arrived yesterday, and you met with their Taliban leader who agreed to help you recruit the Nuristani in Ada Atah for attacking the Americans. With the five Taliban on your side, perhaps the Nuristani will think Sher Dil sent the fighters. What then will your father think of his fifth son who controls all of the guns and poppies that travel through the Rahadnak?

Just before sunset, 3 days after the squad of Americans landed in their helicopters at Ada Atah, one of your sons calls on his cell phone. He heard, over a captured Motorola radio, that the Marines are leaving the day after tomorrow at noon. The European aid workers will be leaving too. You have to act tonight. In your pickup truck you have 4 AKâeuro?47s, 22 full magazines, 1 rocket propelled grenade launcher with 7 rockets, and 1 RPK (light ma-chinegun) with 400 rounds. It would take all night to dig up the cache in the mountains. This is all you have, not counting the Taliban. It has to be tomorrow. What do you say to your family? What do you say to the Taliban fighters?

Requirement

In a time limit of 20 minutes, indicate what actions you will take, what your intent is, and what actions your sons, nephews, and Taliban leader must take tonight.

Issues for Consideration

1. Do you face a threat from the Americans or an opportunity? Explain.

2. What do you believe the Americans will do tonight and tomorrow?

3. What is your intent for your actions?

4. How do your actions and orders meet your intent?

5. What do you consider mission success?

6. How sensitive are you to:

* Casualties among your family?

* Casualties among the Taliban?

* Casualties among the Nuristani villagers?

* Damage to the village?

7. Do your actions force the Americans to fight? If so, what are the possible repercussions of a fight with the Americans?

8. If you choose not to attack the Americans, what other methods could you use to neutralize them?

Situation

You are the Squad Leader, 1st Squad, 3d Platoon, Company G, Battalion Landing Team 2d Battalion, 1st Marines (BLT 2/1). Recently the MEU was sent to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in support of NATO forces during Operation E N-DURING FREEDOM. You have been in-country approximately 2 months and have been assigned to the northeast sector of the area of responsibility, Nan-garhar Province. Last month Company G engaged sizable needihajum forces under Sher Dil during a cordon and search operation within the valley. Company G was able to disrupt arms trafficking via the valley; however, small pockets of resistance continue to slip through the valley (squad-sized, Soviet small arms, light machineguns/rocket propelled grenades (RPGs)). Some of the platoon checkpoints (CPs) have received inaccurate 82mm mortar fire in the last week. Additionally, Company G’s actions last month resulted in significant collateral damage to local poppy fields and goat herds. Several houses and barns within Ada Atah were damaged, and the sole pump in the village center was crushed under the weight of the company’s assault amphibious vehicles. Unequal distributions of solatia payments (appearing to favor Kushtuz farmers in Ada over the minority Nuris-tani) have led to increased thefts and violence against Kushtuz by nonaligned Nuristani tribesmen. The company CP is located 25 miles southwest, and the commanding officer has deployed his platoons throughout the valley to provide security for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), conduct security patrols, and support human exploitation teams in answering demographic requests for information about the local leaders, population, atmosphere, etc.

It is about 1830 now after 3 days in Ada Atah. The villagers are beginning to be less skittish around your Marines and even the World Agro Fund (WAF) and Healthwatch are less irritable. As you head under the cover of an awning by a stable, you hear Cpl Clark;s voice over your internal squad radio,Boss, this is Echo 4 Charlie. Ive got two males in man-dresses checking out the village from the farm 300 meters to the north. They were out there this morning, but theyre back with binoculars now.

Roger, Charlie. You release the handset, but something has changed in Ada Atah. The village is still packed. There is a hum, a murmur underneath the noise of the crowd. Then you notice the soccer ball lying still in the middle of the road. The flutes of the shepherds aren’t playing. There are no children. A WAF volunteer sprints from the pile of seed to the medical center. As she does, a rifle cracks over the noise of the crowd. A gunman with an AK’?47 stands behind a donkey cart and tries to incite the crowd, ‘Bey-baies . . . paida-warunah . . . bon-sat-tunah!’? A rock is hurled from the crowd and strikes the wall next to you. Seconds before the rock above you explodes you see an RPG skip off the top of the pile of seed bags directly across the village. The chatter of machinegun fire comes from the farm to the north. Your radio squeals as your fire team leaders talk over one another, ‘oeBoss, Williams is hit bad. He needs casevac!’

As soon as you look over to Cpl Clark”s position, a teenage boy from the village runs across your path with an AK’?47. He is 1 meter ahead of you and doesn”t see you. What now, Sergeant?

Requirement

Given the deployment and current activities of your squad, and in a time limit of 5 minutes, issue your verbal orders to your element leaders and any reports to higher headquarters. What are you doing after your orders are issued?

Issues for Consideration

1. What are your priorities? The ca-sevac? The machinegun? The RPG? The boy?

2. What do you want to make happen in the next 60 seconds?

3. What can you make happen in the next 5 minutes?

4. Do your actions and their probable results escalate or deescalate violence in your area of operations?

5. Do you want to kill or capture possible opponents?

6. What considerations do you give to injury to noncombatants and damage to local property (collateral damage)?

7. How much collateral damage do you anticipate as a result of your actions?

8. Assuming your actions result in a fight and victory over insurgent forces, what actions do you take with regard to:

* Dead and injured enemy combatants?

* Dead and injured noncombatants?

9. Based on your actions in question 7, what do you expect civilian/NGO response will be to collateral damage:

* At the conclusion of fighting, while you are in the area?

* Within 1 hour after you leave?

* At the end of the day?

* At the end of the week?

10. Based on your actions in question 7, what is the expected enemy response to collateral damage:

* At the conclusion of fighting, while you are in the area?

* Within 1 hour after you leave?

* At the end of the day?

* At the end of the week?

11. What actions can you and the BLT take to counter and exploit enemy and civilian responses to collateral damage:

* While you are in the area?

* After you return to base?

* When you subsequently patrol in the area?

12. What actions have you, the BLT, and local forces taken to defeat enemy motivation to attack:

* While in the area?

* After you return to base?

* Over the next week?

Situation

You are the Squad Leader, 1st Squad, 3d Platoon, Company G, Battalion Landing Team 2d Battalion, 1st Marines (BLT 2/1). Recently the MEU was sent to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in support of NATO forces during Operation Enduring Freedom. You have been in-country approximately 2 months and have been assigned to the northeast sector of the area of responsibility, Nangarhar Province. Last month Company G engaged sizable needihajum forces under Sher Dil during a cordon and search operation within the valley. Company G was able to disrupt arms trafficking via the valley; however, small pockets of resistance continue to slip through the valley (squad-sized, Soviet small arms, light machineguns, and rocket propelled grenades). Some of the platoon checkpoints (CPs) have received inaccurate 82mm mortar fire in the last week. Additionally, Company Gs actions last month resulted in significant collateral damage to local poppy fields and goatherds. Several houses and barns within Ada At ah were damaged, and the sole pump in the village center was crushed under the weight of the company’s assault amphibious vehicles. Unequal distributions of solatia payments (appearing to favor Kushtuz farmers in Ada over the minority Nu ristani) have led to increased theft and violence against the Kushtuz by nonaligned Nuristani tribesmen. The company CP is located 25 miles southwest, and the commanding officer has deployed his platoons throughout the valley to provide security for nongovernmental organizations, conduct security patrols, and support human exploitation teams in answering demographic requests for information about the local leaders, population, atmosphere, etc.

It is 1030 and your squad has been at work in Ada Atah for about an hour and a half. You have been in radio contact with your platoon commander and the vehicle CP (VCP). The VCP is closing up shop and is about to push out to continue patrolling along the main supply route. It’s about time; you believe they’re just a target there. In the street in front of you, children kick around a soccer ball that one of your Marines produced out of his pack earlier in the morning. You can hear music from flutes of shepherds who are intermingled with the growing crowd of locals at the seed distribution center and the building housing the health workers. As you clip the handset back to your flak vest you hear the dull thud of two mortar rounds to the north and look up to see a brown pickup truck tear off of the main supply route into a poppy field, heading south. Your radio crackles to life with the voice of one of the heavy machinegun (HMG) corporals up at the VCP, “Orphan 1-3 this is Thor 1. Brown pickup with four Afghans heading south along the dirt road.”

One of the HMG HMMWVs wheels around to the south in the poppy field west of the dirt road and stops. Its gunner traverses the .50 caliber and fires a six-round burst over the pickup that impacts about 100 meters short of the creek bed. The brown pickup jumps onto the northsouth dirt road and continues south at about 40 kilometers per hour. You have about 20 seconds until that pickup makes it to Ada At ah. What now, Sergeant?

Requirement

Given the deployment and current activities of your squad, and in a time limit of 5 seconds, issue your verbal orders to your element leaders and any reports to higher headquarters. What are you doing after your orders are issued?

Issues for Consideration

1. Do you engage the pickup truck? Did the truck’s occupants commit a hostile act/show hostile intent? How does the indirect fire play into your decision? Do your actions change if the passenger points an AK-47 straight in the air out of the window? What if the passenger fires the AK- 47 back at the HMG section?

2. What do you tell the HMG section to do, if anything?

3. Do your actions and their probable results escalate or deescalate violence in your area of operations?

4. What do you expect the enemy to do as a result of your orders? How do your orders exploit the enemy’s response?

5. How do you expect the nongovernmental organizations to react to the actions of your squad?

6. What do you expect civilian reaction/sentiments to be to the collateral damage and/or the actions of your squad? Within 2 hours after you have arrived? At the end of the day? At the end of the week?

7. What is the expected enemy response to collateral damage and/or actions of your squad? Within 2 hours after you leave? At the end of the day? At the end of the week?

8. What actions can you and the BLT take to counter and exploit enemy and civilian responses to collateral damage? While you are in the area? After you return to base?

9. What actions can you, the company, and the BLT take to deter future enemy activity in this area? While you are in the area? After you return to base? During subsequent patrols in the area:

Situation

You are the squad leader, 1st Squad, 3d Platoon, Company G, Battalion Landing Team 2d Battalion, 1st Marines. Recendy the MEU was sent to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in support of NATO forces during Operation ENDURING Freedom. You have been in-country approximately 2 months and have been assigned to the northeast sector of the area of responsibility, Nangarhar Province. Last month Golf Company engaged sizable needihajum forces under Sher Dil during cordon and search operations within the valley. Golf Company was able to disrupt arms trafficking via the valley; however, small pockets of resistance continue to slip through the valley (squad-sized, Soviet small arms, Soviet light machineguns, police pistols). Some of the platoon combat outposts have received inaccurate 82mm mortar fire in the last week. Additionally, Golf Company’s actions last month resulted in significant collateral damage to local poppy fields. Several houses within Ada Atah were damaged by rocket propelled grenade fire, and the sole pump in the village center was crushed under the weight of the company’s assault amphibious vehicles (AAVs). Unequal distribution of solatia payments (appearing to favor Kushtuz farmers in Ada over the minority Nuristani) have led to increased theft and violence against the Kushtuz by Nuristani tribesmen. The company command post is located 25 miles southwest, and the commanding officer has deployed his platoons throughout the valley to provide security for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), conduct security patrols, and support human exploitation teams in answering company requests for information about the local leaders, population, atmosphere, etc.

Your squad is dismounted and is tasked with providing security for two NGOs (World Agro Fund (WAF) and Healthwatch (HW)) operating in Ada Atah, a small Nuristani village 2 kilometers northeast of Ada in the Rahadnak Valley. You have one of the company’s high-back HMMWVs (damaged by an antipersonnel mine), with lumber, steel pipes, tools, and five 20-pound bags of cement. CpI Vasquez, a steamfitter from Tacoma, WA, borrowed an oxy-acetylene torch from motor transport to repair the HMMWV for the company gunny. A four-man combat engineer detachment and a corpsman are attached to your squad. Each fire team carries one AT-4 in addition to its standard combat load. All of your personnel have personal role radios. You have only one AN/PRC-1 19F that can reach back to your platoon commander’s control base. A section of AH-I W Cobras can reinforce Golf Company in 1 5 minutes. A casevac CH- 46 is on 30minute strip alert.

WAF/HW are operating under the auspices of the United Nations World Food Program and are expected to be in Ada Atah for 96 to 120 hours. They are distributing hybrid corn seed and fertilizers in hopes of replacing the damaged poppy crop, collecting nucricional surveys, and providing measles, mumps, rubella inoculations. They have been in che province for abouc 6 months and were in Ada and Ada Acah when Golf Company rolled chrough lase month. The WAF/HW reluctandy accepted your squad’s protection for die duration of their mission after it was insisted upon by the United Nations World Food Program director. WAF/HW volunteers are of one accord in their perceptions that Golf Company has caused most of the problems in Ada Atah. Even you admit to yourself that the pump’s shallowly buried water pipe was crushed by a Golf Company AAV, and chose tracks thac plowed across che poppy fields were probably noe driven by Taliban.

It is 0800 when your plaeoon commander and che ocher 2 squads load on che CH-53 in Landing Zone Curlew, leaving you wich your 16 Marines, 1 corpsman, 24 WAF/HW volunteers, and a broken-down HMMWV that is dragging its brush guard and is missing the driver’s side floorboard. There is a heavy machinegun section from Weapons Company conducting a visual checkpoint along the main supply route about 400 meters north of the landing zone. By 0830 chete are about 70 locals men, women, and children) in che village cencer, lining up near die NGOs. You remember Ada and Ada Atah from last months operations. The village is about 200 meters in diameter, a ring of one-story houses and srables around a village green. There is a blacksmich shop and a café with a few tables. About 400 meters to che norch is a gas station on the main supply route and several oudying farms to the norch norcheasc. What now, Sergeant?

Requirement

Given assets available and in a time limit of 10 minutes, issue your verbal orders to your element leaders and any reports to higher headquarters. What are you doing after your orders are issued?

Issues for Consideration

1. Should you do anything?

2. What is the intent of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan? What might you do to support that intent?

3. What might your company’s commander do in your situation? Your battalion commander? What does chat mean for you?

4. How might your potential actions play at the physical level? The mental level? The moral level? Which of these is most important?

5. How important are the NGOs to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan? Could you do something that might change eheir opinion of U.S. Marines?

Situation

You are the 1st Squad Leader, 3d Platoon, Company F, Battalion Landing Team 2d Battalion, 1st Marines (BLT 2/1). Recently, the MEU was sent to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in support of NATO forces during Operation Enduring Freedom. The MEU has been in country approximately 45 days and is assigned to the northeast sector of the area of responsibility, Nangarhar Province. Recently, your company has been assigned to the eastern sector of the area of operations (AO), a sector that includes the main road from Jalalabad to Pakistan through the Khyber Pass. Your company’s tasks include defeating anticoalit ion/ ins urgent/Taliban forces, halting the illegal flow of arms and explosives, and strengthening local government, police, and army forces. All of these tasks are executed in order to increase local stability and promote legitimate economic growth in the AO.

Your company commander assigned your platoon to the town of Basawul with the specific task of working with Afghan police in support of the BLT antiinsurgency campaign. The area around Basawul is arid, sparsely populated, and poor, with a market square in the town center. Extended families reside in low, single-story dwellings built around a central courtyard. You and your men are quite familiar with these dwellings from your weeks of patrolling and frequent house searches for weapons and contraband.

You command a Marine rifle squad (13 men) mounted in 3 HMMWVs, 2 with ring-mounted M240 machineguns, and 1 Afghan police pickup truck. Four Afghan policemen are attached to your squad for this patrol. The mission of your patrol is to interdict any insurgent forces or their supplies transiting your AO and to confiscate any caches of arms or equipment discovered in order to deny this region to the enemy as a sanctuary or supply source. The platoon has two personnel HMMWVs back at the police station, and the Afghan police have two more pickup trucks. One combined antiarmor team is approximately 10 minutes from the town and serves as a quick reaction force.

During an uneventful patrol through the local village you notice more than a dozen unarmed militaryaged men loitering about. You don’t recall seeing any of them before. Those who meet your gaze give you hard looks. You notice that the general store has sold out its small stock of canned goods. Per the patrol route, you drive by a circuitous route to a residence 4 kilometers east of town reputed to be the family home of a popular insurgent chief your battalion has long been after.

You halt your HMMWVs away from the residence, and you assign 1st Fire Team to advance with two of the policemen in the pickup truck to observe the house. You are able to observe through binoculars the team drive up the north side of a mountain, dismount, then ascend the mountain to observe the home. Approximately 5 minutes after they crest the ridgeline and you cannot observe them, your radio operator hands you the radio and says, “1st Fire Team.”

You receive the report. “There’s an unfamiliar pickup truck and a van parked in the courtyard. There’s an older man butchering a sheep in the front yard. Afghan police officer states that he believes the activities in the courtyard are in preparation for a celebration.” You hand the Afghan police officer the radio, and he talks to the Afghan police officer with 1st Fire Team. He then looks at you, shrugs his shoulders, and says in his broken English, “Something will happen, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.” He indicates the clear sky and says, “Tonight is a good night for a fight,” and smiles. You look at your watch and notice that sunset is in 80 minutes, and the patrol is due back in 60 minutes. What now?

Requirement

In a time limit of 20 minutes, indicate what actions you will take, issue your orders to your team leaders, give your report to your platoon commander, and make a recommendation on support you need from him to accomplish the mission.

Issues for Consideration

1. What do you believe will happen in the area over the next 4 hours and 24 hours that will impact the platoon’s mission?

2. What do you want to make happen?

3. How do your actions, orders, and recommendations do this? What is the task and purpose of the local police force, if anything?

4. Do your actions and their probable results escalate or deescalate violence in your AO?

5. Do you want to kill or capture possible opponents?

6. What considerations do you give to injury of noncombatants and damage to local property (collateral damage)?

7. Assuming your actions result in a fight and victory over insurgent forces, what actions do you take with regard to:

* Dead and injured enemy combatants?

* Dead and injured noncombatants?

8. Based on your actions in question 7, what do you expect civilian response will be to collateral damage:

* At the conclusion of fighting, while you are in the area?

* Within 1 hour after you leave?

* At the end of the day?

* At the end of the week?

9. Based on your actions in question 7, what is the expected enemy response to collateral damage:

* At conclusion of fighting, while you are in the area?

* Within 1 hour after you leave?

* At the end of the day?

* At the end of the week?

10. What actions can you and the BLT take to counter and exploit enemy and civilian responses to collateral damage:

* While you are in the area?

* After you leave the base?

* When you subsequently patrol in the area?

11. What actions can you, the BLT, and the local forces take to defeat enemy motivation to attack:

* While in the area?

* After you return to base?

* Over the next week?