Counterinsurgency -- U.S. Army and Marine Field Manual.
-- DAVID H. PETRAEUS Lieutenant General, U.S. Army
-- JAMES F. AMOS Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps
ISBN-13: 978-0226841519
For Afghanistan one can assume that the # 1 objective is ending this war, rather than dragging it out.
This "Petraeus COIN FM" mentions aerial surveillance and collecting tips -- called HUMINT in the military jargon.
Our forces in Afghanistan need the strongest offense. Otherwise major blood letting can go on for years.
Appendix F: Cold Trail Tracking
Full text BTF :::
The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
Paperback: 472 pages
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0226841510
ISBN-13: 978-0226841519
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #28,872 in Books
Proposed addition to the COIN FM. Appendix F: Cold Trail Tracking.
Gens. Petraeus and Amos missed this one. Not their fault entirely -- the U.S. Army stopped doing dog-based back tracking in 1975.
Military Police Command took over and forced the sentry dog model on all canine tasks. There is not one bloodhound in the U.S. military establishment, today, apart from prisons.
Cold trail tracking is back-tracking. This is different from following infiltration teams in the field. Those guys will be handled separately. Tracking back up the infiltration scent trails to the bases -- that is where the COIN force gets consistent 24/7/365 offense.
Bloodhounds are the only breed of dog that can hold track on a cold trail. The ordinary bloodhound can find and hold track on a week old scent trail. For back tracking, Bloodies are the unique resource.
Appendix F
Cold Trail Tracking in Counterinsurgency
Counterinsurgency operations are, by their nature, all about controlling contact. The COIN force has a prime objective: to eliminate by a combination of force and motivation the main resources that insurgents use to project violence. This appendix explains the role of Cold Trail Tracking (CTT) and the unique importance of back-tracking tactics which in turn depend on a modernized utilization of the bloodhound breed of dogs. Scrounging actions are endorsed that follow the practices of Lt. Col. William Corson and his Combined Action Platoons.
OVERVIEW
F-1. Cold Trail Tracking can change the mix of operations available to land forces conducting a counterinsurgency (COIN) war. Cold Trail Tracking (CTT) can strike insurgents at their bases. These are offensive operations, made available by such as the Afghan Public Protection Program (AP3) monitoring function. When an infiltration team lays down a scent trail – any scent trail, anywhere – that scent trail can be enormously important in ways that are unpleasant for the insurgency. Rough terrain and poor transportation networks are perfect for this modernized CTT resource. Cold Trail Tracking serves as a means to focus force on the bases and the local command-and-control structures of the insurgency.
F-2. Cold Trail Tracking provides considerable asymmetric advantages to counterinsurgents. When insurgents deploy conventional infiltration forces, CTT assets can respond by going to source.
F-3. Morale improves noticeably when soldiers know that their units can back-track infiltration teams and kill the SOBs who send them. In Afghanistan, this amounts to an exercise of FOLLOW THE MONEY to local and regional drug gangs that control the poppy crop, which feeds on the order of $70-billion worldwide in heroin. The immediate test gets put to propaganda notions that the violence results from "Taliban" operations related to Mullah Omar, despite that prior to the 2005 declaration of a new War on Drugs there had been no war to speak of. With the first dozen or so CTT operations, you learn right off who your enemies are. The bloodhounds’ noses could not care less for the propaganda meme of their handlers’ leaders.
COLD TRAIL TRACKING IN THE STRIKE ROLE
F-5. Precision attacks can be of enormous value in COIN operations. There is nothing more precise than CTT. These are not hurried operations.
F-6. When destroying an obvious insurgent headquarters or command center, counterinsurgents can maximize care to minimize civilian casualties by utilizing line-of-sight, personal contact, and canine parsing capabilities.
COLD TRAIL TRACKING IN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION
F-7. Given the challenges faced by human intelligence (HUMINT) assets in finding and penetrating insurgent networks, counterinsurgents must effectively employ all available intelligence collection capabilities. Unmanned aircraft systems, manned aircraft, and space-based platforms are useless for Cold Trail Tracking. Even full penetration assets will have limited effectiveness on local details.
F-8. When insurgents operate in rural or remote areas, the scent trails from infiltration teams persist for more than a week. CTT Teams (CT3s) with bloodhounds can locate their points of origin.
HIGH-TECHNOLOGY ASSETS
E-9. Today’s high-technology air and space systems are not integrated with CTT operations. All cold trail information is lost in the current panoply of military assets. Unmanned aircraft systems, such as the Predator, give counterinsurgents unprecedented capabilities in surveillance and target acquisition. These assets could be used to safeguard CT3 elements.
E-10. Aerial surveillance platforms with long loiter times can place an entire region under constant surveillance. There remain drawbacks: countermeasures are developed. Decoys and mixed-use camouflage have their purposes. These platforms are always blind across time.
E-11. Integrating air systems to support modernized CT3 operations should lead to improved survivability. The big problem with the old Vietnam-era CTT – then Combat Tracking Team prior to 1975 -- was that the handlers got killed. Most of them. Walking a dog on a lead in mature vegetation with nothing out ahead of you for intel or firepower is suicidal. Two years out in Vietnam the craft on the dog team side improved to where these tasks were less suicidal – more like playing Russian Roulette with one bullet in your six-shooter revolver instead of four bullets. Afghanistan eliminates the vegetation gratis, so adding Predator to the flank resources can only help.
E-12. The bloodhound’s nose is high-tech for surveillance. It works across time. This is a suitable point to put aside notions that tracking with bloodhounds is low-tech. The process for running in-force back-tracking has been developed in countries such as Australia and Holland. Integration with modern aerial assets will require work, hopefully at Fort Huachuca, AZ. On site is also doable with Aussie assistance.
LOW-TECHNOLOGY ASSETS
E-13. Everything with a gun. Everything with explosives. For the intel side of Cold Trail work, everything that works at one point in time.
THE COLD TRAIL TRACKING COMMAND STRUCTURE
E-14. COIN operations require a joint, multinational command and control architecture for air and space that is effective and responsive. The joint structure applies to more than just U.S. forces; it involves coordinating assets of multinational partners and the host nation. COIN planning must thus establish a joint and multinational command and control system and policies on the rules and conditions for back-tracking tactical operations.
E-15. During Cold Trail operations, a four element team on the ground is governed by the overall operation plan. Typical elements are structured to:
-- Command – liaison and coordination roles
-- Handler – dog tasks
-- Left flank
-- Right Flank
E-16. Command has the added responsibility to minimize visibility during the Back Tracking operation. The target has no idea that the CTT operation is headed its way. On the other hand, the CT3 has no idea what they are going to find in the way of the size and capabilities of the targeted insurgent base.
E-17. The Handler element can be enhanced with one major improvement over the Vietnam CTT training system. The dogs can be trained to take commands from very high frequency whistles, including direction commands. This eliminates using the lead. Mines and the I.E.D.s still go off if they are triggered – better to lose a dog than to lose a dog and the handler. Practices that optimize for general purpose Sentry Dog applications are best ignored as dangerously misleading when designing the CT3 system. The Bloodies drool, smell strong, define ugly, and have their own private jokes about "military" bearing. Consider them as God’s little joke on anybody who really, really wants to win a COIN war as the defender.
E-18. The Flank elements are separated during pursuit. Flank elements have very different sets of duties during major turns in the track. Coordinating by hand signals and doing precise rotation and go-to-ground patterns for turns tend to complicate Flank element communication. Splitting to two Flank elements makes for faster CTT.
E-19. Overall command aims at the target which is unknown at the start of the CTT operation. Assume that the mid-level officer corp can carry out the CTT op as a human tracking effort. Such ops are worked out at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Human trackers take a decade to develop to professional level and these individuals know better than to try for night ops in hostile environments.
ACQUIRING COLD TRAIL TRACKING ASSETS
E-20. International cooperation is the traditional route for acquiring Bloodies for use supporting Marines in a war. Australian Bloodies were the preference for back tracking ops in Vietnam. The problem at hand, today, is that Military Police Command (Ft. Leonard Wood, MO) insists on forcing sentry dogs into nose dog tracking roles. The MPC/FLW shepherds and Malinois are not good trackers, so tracking itself is blamed for the failures. A properly trained Bloodie with experience in desert terrain should be available in 2010 in the $10,000 to $15,000 range. During Vietnam the 30 or so Australian Bloodies used to run back tracking were bought with private money and then moved easily enough in-country.
E-21. Expect no help from either civilian appointees or any part of the double-dipper-in-training and double-dipper-in-place (DDIT/DDIP) procurement system. High tech equipment and big money drive everything. This has been the case at least since Vietnam. One famous example was the RPG-7 request from Gen. Westmoreland. He was told that re-engineering it for Americans was impossible – despite that China Lake made one in 6 hours bench time and with better propellant and explosive. A second example was use of the HMMVW jeeps going against mines and bombs in Iraq. The HMMVW vehicles weigh 6,800-pounds. The Army had 4,500 M113-class tracked vehicles, Armored Personnel Carriers weighing 26,000-pounds. Despite figuring in 70% of American casualties, the money went with the no-frame HMMVW tin cans. Today, Afghanistan is a tracking war and both the Aussies and the Dutch are using bloodhounds there every day. There is no money in dogs for the DDIT/DDIP crews so expect to have to buy your own dogs.
E-22. Finance your own war. FOLLOW THE MONEY. The money in Afghanistan is poppy money. That is billions of dollars in various currencies a year. One simple first step is to bust up the 20 biggest Poppy Palaces in Kabul. Take tanks. Take howitzers. Take whatever you need. There has to be high side of $100-million in those houses. Enough to finance buying enough Bloodies – 500 dogs would be overkill – to run 300 back tracking ops every 6 months. Bust up another 100 substantial bases. When you bust up a base, keep the money. You need it for Bloodies and to bribe local tribal people. Find a modern Lt.Col. Bill Corson to run the pot. (By the book Army units are advised to run car washes.)
E-23. Avoid anything and everything to do with mercenaries. Ending a war is not in the interest of the merc companies. The profit motive, there, requires them to colonize conflicts. Got a 2-year war, they’ll stretch it to 6 years. No problem. Similar difficulties present with Special Forces. These guys came in to Afghanistan in 2002 and killed tribal leaders who refused to sign on with the Americans. In normal times, none of those guys would have signed on with America. Killing tribal elders for no particular reason ??? Not even being enemies ? The tactic of murdering tribal elders contributed to on-time-and-under-budget success pushing back the Kandahar Taliban. Long term... not so much.
Appendix F -- FM 3-24/MCWP Proposed -- 7 February 2010
Questions ???