Special operations patrol
There are various other tasks which may be set for a patrol-type unit. These include the demolition of a bridge or other structure, mounting mobile check-points, escorting supplies or prisoners and supporting the local police in the maintenance of order and public confidence in the rule of law.
Supporting the local police – or replacing them according to the situation – is very much a feature of the modern anti-insurgent function of the military. Where insurgents have compromised the local government or police and temporarily succeeded in their aim of imposing their will on the local populace, it is often necessary to mount foot patrols around the streets not only to catch or deter the terrorist but to reassure the local people that someone is there to protect them and that the rule of law has returned.
An example patrol
As an example often makes these things clearer I’ll tell you about a patrol I took down the banks of the Zambezi river some years ago.
My mission was to ambush and destroy any insurgents crossing the Zambezi river from Zambia into what was then Rhodesia. Zambia was being used as safe ground for training and supply in a similar way to how Pakistan is used today. I had to perform this task for a couple of weeks in different places at my discretion and had just four men, besides myself, to carry it out. Given each group of insurgents might number in the dozens, surprise was of the essence.
The Zambezi is a very wide river and just to complicate things it is thick with crocodile and hippo. I once saw an 18ft crocodile on a sandbank in the Zambezi. And while hippos have a good press, they are actually one of the most fierce and dangerous animals in creation – even the big crocodiles are scared of them. And so are the locals as a hippo will bite a canoe cleanly into two pieces.
The ground cover was moderately dense bush and there were no locals in the patrol area. The ground we were to cover was a huge game park the size of a small country and which had had no visitors for 15 years despite the presence of rhino, elephants and leopards. So the only people who were likely to cross the river were insurgents and poachers coming for the ivory on the elephants and rhino. It was difficult in these circumstances to tell insurgents and poachers apart – but, being fond of animals, I was not inclined to take the trouble.
The routine I set up was to simply mount an ambush on the river each night, shoot anything that came across and then move during the day to a new position. Doing this safely and tactically was a more complex issue.
Each day we would walk down the river for 8 hours or so. Just before dark we would ‘dog-leg’ back on ourselves to ambush anyone following us and then settle down for a meal – always a mile or so from the river so as not to give away our ambush position. One man would be despatched as a scout to find a good ambush position. The scout would return after dark and lead us into the ambush position he had selected.
The reason for lying up away from the ambush position at last light was to prevent anyone following us into the ambush position and turning the tables on us.
Sundown was at 1830 and then dark followed in 5 minutes. This meant that the scout often had a difficult job to lead the team to the correct place. Sometimes it was a case of holding on to the guy in front. One night we were being led into position in this way amongst bushes when one of the bushes got up and screamed at us. It was an elephant. We turned and ran – straight into another elephant. We turned and ran again into another – we had wandered into the middle of a herd of sleeping elephants. It was so funny – afterwards.
Close by the ambush position four men would set out their light-weight sleeping bags in a cross, heads together, a few yards in from the river bank. This allowed for quiet communication amongst them. The remaining man would be on stag watching the river. Quite a nice job sat in the warm evening – watching the river flow and listening to the creatures making their noises.
A large hippo stumbled on our position one night and managed to hook one of its tusks in my mate Yves Debay’s sleeping bag. He shouted in surprise and startled the animal which let out a bellow and set off at a trot. Dragging Yves in his sleeping bag behind it. We almost laughed ourselves sick. Each environment will have its own localized dangers!
One particular night the sentry woke us to say two small boats were coming over the river. We formed up in a line on a cliff some 10ft above the water – four rifles and a machine gun – and riddled the boats from a range of some 15ft in a few seconds. Do you remember what I said about a good ambush being over in 2 seconds? Four rifles and a gun fire over 3,000 rounds per minute – that’s 54 rounds per second – and can decimate the enemy.
Then we picked up our kit and ran for a good mile. Mortar fire came over the river onto the site we had ambushed but we were well out of it. The next day we did a recce of the position but all we found was one canoe full of holes washed up on the river bank. The crocodiles had eaten well that night.
THE AMBUSH
An ambush is using the element of surprise to force a contact on the enemy at a place and time of your choosing and then, hopefully, killing him quickly while minimizing your own casualties.
We have already seen how unpleasant being ambushed can be – even when it is not done properly – so now we are going to learn how to set an ambush efficiently and make it much worse for the enemy. An ambush is particularly useful in counter-insurgency operations when the enemy generally does not want to meet you face to face. It may be the only time you get the chance to kill any of them and do so without the usual required numerical advantage.
The Author and a buddy (photographed left) sat with a radio for three weeks on this hill waiting for someone to ambush. We watched this scene every day for three weeks. And nobody came... Sometimes soldiering really is 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror. (Author’s Collection)
The simplest ambush is just waiting, hidden by a track, for the enemy to come along and shooting him when he turns up – but there are quite a number of little tricks I can show you which will make your ambushes a lot more successful and deadly. And deadly for the opposition means safer for you. As a bonus for you, the more you know about setting up ambushes the more chance you will have of spotting the ones set against you. This can only be a good thing.
Every ambush is going to be different according to the terrain, the enemy target and the forces at your disposal to set it up but we will begin by looking at the principles of the perfect ambush.
The perfect ambush
An ambush consists of a number of component parts. The diagram of a foot ambush below has them all, aside from heavy weapons, while an ambush put together on the spur of the moment may have only a few. If you know and understand the use of all the potential parts you can put together to increase your effectiveness then you can decide, rather like a good chef, when and where to use the ingredients.
In this perfect ambush there is a ‘killing ground’ behind the enemy so they cannot usefully run away, the ground rises to your position to make it difficult for them to come at you, landmines and Claymores are laid, everyone has been to their positions and can find them in the dark. The main ambush party are waiting, resting, in the Standby Position while a series of sentries watch for the approach of the quarry.
When the enemy are sighted the officer commanding confirms the intention of springing the ambush – as the enemy may be too small or large – then the main party take up their positions.