TDG 06: Ambush in Qeet
By C.J. Douglas and John F. Schmitt
If this is your first TDG, you may want to check out these instructions first.
You are a rifle company commander conducting counterinsurgency operations. Your reinforced rifle company occupies a forward operating base (FOB) outside the insurgency-controlled city of Qeet. Enemy tactics include ambushes, roadside bombs, and vehicle-borne IEDS (VBIEDs), often in combination. Your company consists of your three rifle platoons on APCs and a tank platoon. Additionally, you have converted your weapons platoon into a fourth rifle platoon mounted on up-armored HMMWVs. Day-to-day operations consist of mounted security patrols through the city. You have learned not to halt in any one place for long while on patrol because you can expect to be attacked within an hour of halting.
Around 2200 hours you hear a significant firefight in the city, which you decide must be between insurgents and host-nation forces because there are no other U.S. forces operating in the area and there has been no traffic on the tactical radio nets. Anticipating a tasking, you issue a warning order to prepare a mounted patrol to conduct a rescue operation. Within an hour you receive word that a host-nation EOD convoy with a private security detail has been ambushed and destroyed. An attack helicopter overflight has confirmed the incident and reports six burning vehicles at the scene near the College of Applied Sciences on Rte. 12 on the south side of the city. The insurgents have posted a video of the ambush and claim to have taken a Filipino contractor captive. The video shows grainy footage of a person in khaki being dragged away by two insurgents. At 2315, a tasking arrives, but not for a rescue operation; it will be a recovery operation to retrieve the bodies, of which you are told to expect about 20. You are also told to gather information about the location of the Filipino contractor.
Leaving 3rd Platoon to man the FOB, you mount out, in order of march: tanks, your headquarters, 1st Platoon, Weapons Platoon, and 2nd Platoon. En route to the scene, your tank platoon takes RPG fire but quickly dispatches it without stopping. You arrive at the ambush scene around 2345, heading east on Rte. 12.
The scene is eerie in your NODs. Four pickups and two HMMWVs have careened of the road after being hit. Three are overturned. Four are still burning. To the right is mostly empty wasteland, except for an abandoned hospital in a walled enclosure about 200 meters off the main road. A row of two-story buildings backs up to Rte. 12 on the left. That must be where the ambush came from. A strange shape next to the road catches your attention in the flitting light of the burning vehicles. Upon examination, you discover it is a pile of bodies, about 20 of them, stacked three high like firewood. Somebody—probably several somebodies—has celebrated on the bodies with an AK-47 after they had been stacked here.
What do you do, captain?
Requirement
In a time limit of five minutes, make your decision in the form of any orders you will issue and/or reports or requests you will make. Then provide an explanation of your rationale.
All platoons, I believe the insurgents have likely arranged this site to draw us into another ambush. We will establish a temporary secure position at the hospital, call for EOD and air support, and minimize disturbing the ambush site until EOD arrives.
Company FiST—contact the DASC and request available XCAS to provide overwatch over our position. Stack them out of possible MANPADS range but able to keep their sensors observing the ambush site and the buildings north of Route 12 near it.
XO—contacted higher HQ and request EOD on site, we suspect possible IEDs embedded amongst the casualties. Have them contact you when they’re en route and we will determine a link-up plan to escort them to the site.
HQ platoon and 1st Platoon—we’re establishing a temporary CP at the hospital. 1st Platoon, clear the exterior area inside the wall enclosure. Company 1stSgt, find a way up to the roof that’s either external to the building or minimizes our movement inside the building, I want our FiST on the roof observing the ambush site. Weapons Platoon, clear the outbuildings inside the enclosure and stand by as our internal QRF.
Tank platoon—take up defensive positions outside the 4 corners of the wall around the hospital, with your targeting sights and barrels covering possible avenues of approach. Keep some of your barrels directed at the ambush site but you will not fire in the direction of the town without my express order.
2nd Platoon—extinguish the fires in the burning vehicles, and stay clear of the vics that aren’t burning as best you can. Then send half your platoon inside the walls and have the other half patrol our perimeter outside the walls.
ROE and weapons conditions are SOP.
Rationale: I agree with Harald, this whole thing stinks of a secondary ambush waiting to happen. The abandoned hospital has a wall around it; I’ll use that to muster my company and mask us as best it can from line of site of the buildings just north of the ambush site. Based on this scenario, no one is shooting from those buildings at us yet, but I’d bet the insurgents at least have observers there and will probably coordinate a secondary ambush if we remain exposed too long along Route 12. So I want off Route 12 and the hospital is far enough away with an obstacle surrounding it that it makes their efforts to observe and attack my dispositions harder.
I want the FiST with the FAC on the roof to coordinate CAS and aviation ISR. That aviation is my eyes on the area around and behind the ambush site to report possible movement of new insurgent forces toward us for a secondary ambush. They can also report on the progress of EOD toward the site and allow me to better coordinate linking up with EOD to escort them on site.
Like Harald, I’m betting those corpses are booby-trapped. The insurgents took the time to stack them and then make them as gruesome as possible, which would normally disincline people to poke too closely the remains in the effort to evacuate them as quickly as possible. I want EOD to use their tools and skills to clear the corpses of possible IEDs before we move them.
I want the fires in the burning vehicles extinguished because they will degrade my night vision goggles as well as illuminate any Marines moving around them as targets for insurgent observers. I doubt the insurgents would attempt to booby-trap burning vehicles but we should stay clear of the non-burning ones in case those are rigged.
I’m not going to try and maneuver tanks inside the enclosure walls, that’s begging for a traffic jam and they look better with threatening guns pointed outward toward possible avenues of approach. I want their barrels clearly pointed toward the ambush site to deter insurgents but there is no way in hell I’m firing tank rounds into those buildings when they could pass through and cause collateral damage behind them. They just need to look scary.
When I get air on station, I can use their more precise fires if necessary against the buildings north of Route 12. Per the scenario I don’t appear to have mortars, and the situation doesn’t strike me as nearly dire enough to consider dropping artillery into an urban area.
As we wait for EOD to arrive, I’ll brief the platoons on my intent for tactical site exploitation of possible intelligence on surviving contractor, but frankly that person is a tomorrow problem. I’ll also brief the platoons on my plan for dispositions immediately around the ambush site once EOD arrives, and once EOD has done their job, we will secure the bodies and retrograde from the area as quickly as possible to minimize exposure to a secondary insurgent ambush or counterattack.
1 Inform Higher HQ of the situation and request attack helicopter support for the recovery effort by orbiting the area to watch for movement and give support. If attack helicopters are not available, request armed scouts and if they are not available, request a UAV. Also request EOD support because that stack of bodies and the vehicles are most likely booby trapped or have big IEDs near them. Finally, have them put the QRF, mortars and any field artillery in the area on standby.
2 Orders to my unit:
a We will establish a perimeter defense around this site and await EOD support before recovering the bodies. Air support has been requested. All personnel will stay a minimum of 30 meters away from the bodies and the convoy vehicles as they may be booby trapped or have an IED near them.
b 1st Platoon. Detach one APC with full crew to Tank Platoon to help establish a road block at the east end of the road. Platoon (-) will form the north and south sides of the perimeter from Tank Platoon west to Weapons Platoon’s positions. Emplacement vehicles to ensure coverage to the buildings to our north and to the open field and the hospital compound to our south.
c 2nd Platoon. Establish a roadblock on the west end of the road. Orient vehicles to ensure coverage west down the road, on the area to our south and the hospital compound and north towards the buildings.
d Weapons Platoon. Establish defensive perimeter from the 2nd Platoon area to the 1st Platoon area. Emplace vehicles to ensure coverage north and south.
e Tank Platoon. Accept attachment of the APC and crew from 1st Platoon. Establish roadblock at the east end of the road and establish defensive perimeter to the 1st Platoon area. Orient vehicles to ensure coverage of the buildings, the road, the open area to our south and the hospital complex.
f Coordinating Instructions.
i All personnel scan and search their areas for IEDs, wires and other indicators of IEDs and booby traps before emplacing. If you find something odd, report it, mark it and move away.
ii All personnel will make full use of night vision devices, thermal viewers and weapon sights to scan for hostile movement, weapons fire and other anomalies. Platoon leaders will ensure overlapping coverage of their sectors and will forward their sector sketches to the 1SG to consolidate coverage. Report anything sighted immediately via the Company net.
iii Disperse vehicles and personnel (less tanks) to minimize vulnerability to IEDs while maintaining perimeter coverage and defensive capabilities. This includes dismounting infantry.
iv Standing EOF and ROE are in effect.
3 If necessary, move the HQ section away from the bodies and vehicles.
4 Update my 3rd Platoon on what is going on and warn them to stay extra alert. A smart terrorist leader might decide to attack the FOB with us away and otherwise engaged.
5 As time and the situation permits, look around for any evidence of where the kidnapping might have occurred, personal items and any evidence where they might have gone.
Observation: this is one Hell of a time to be without my own mortars.