An Interesting Story From The Sandbox

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Here's an example of quick thinking and ingenuity from our boys "over there." Found it in "Stars & Stripes" so it might be a little biased, but I doubt that it is fake.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=35791&archive=true
Wrong number: Interpreter answers cell phone, dupes insurgents


By Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, April 22, 2006



Jeff Schogol / S&S
Sgt. Nicholas Hake-Jordan, 23, of 1st Battalion, 68th Armor, from Springfield, Ore., holds a new sniper rifle seized during a patrol that also yielded one dead insurgent thanks to a sly interpreter.


IBRAHIM AL MARKHUR, Iraq — One misplaced cell phone and one savvy interpreter equaled one dead insurgent, several pieces of intelligence and a whole lot of captured weapons.

On a routine patrol, U.S. troops with 1st Battalion, 68th Armor came upon a house in the midst of dense greenery and at the end of a dusty country road.

Staff Sgt. Matthew Nicodemus, 33, said he immediately noticed that no Iraqi men were around.

Suddenly, a cell phone inside the home rang, said Nicodemus, of Altoona, Pa.

“The interpreter went in and answered the phone, and on the other end of the phone the person said, in Arabic, ‘Hey, coalition forces are here, go ahead and run away,’ and he specifically said, ‘Go and run into the palm groves all around here,’ ” Nicodemus said.

The troops then fanned out into the palm groves and found several weapons including several rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades, two AK-47s and a new sniper’s rifle, Nicodemus said.

They also found a hand-written map of a U.S. military base, diagrams on how to build rockets and a CD-ROM with several thousand files written in Arabic, said Sgt. 1st Class Michael Greer, 35, of San Luis Obispo, Calif.

If that weren’t enough, the insurgent kept calling the interpreter back to ask what the Americans were doing.

The interpreter kept the act going.

“He’s basically acting like, you know, he’s watching us ... making sure everything is fine,” Nicodemus said.

The U.S. troops knew the insurgents were coming back and decided to lie in wait for them.

Many troops said they were psyched by the prospect of killing the person on the other end of the phone.

“I love this [expletive],” said Sgt. Nicholas Hake-Jordan, 23, of Springfield, Ore.

The troops didn’t have to wait long.

Shortly after U.S. troops set up, the insurgents called the interpreter and said they would be by in about 10 minutes to attack the Americans, said Staff Sgt. Art Hoffman, 30.

When seven insurgents got to the house, they ran into a wall of U.S. fire, said Hoffman, of Baltimore.

“The first guy that came in the door just dropped like a rock. The other two guys behind him got hit pretty hard, too. The rest grabbed their wounded and just ran back off,” said Hoffman.

One insurgent was confirmed killed in the fighting and the other two were in bad shape, he said.

Afterward, the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Thomas Fisher, 42, praised his soldiers’ actions.

“The initiative demonstrated at the platoon level is exactly how you win this fight,” said Fisher, of Sioux Falls, S.D.
 
Hee hee...

A simple two-part passphrase to initiate any unsecured coms, with a secondary duress signal, would have saved those guys a world of hurt.

"Ali?"
"Baba..." (Yes, it's really me, go ahead.)

-OR-

"Ali?"
"Camel!" (I'm at gunpoint, do the exact opposite of what I say..)


We're obviously not fighting a bunch of rocket scientits or brain surgeons over there.

I wonder what the "sniper rifle" was, an SVD or Romak type?
 
I am sorry, dedicated ambush, US troops know location and time, and we get one KIA and two wounded, not the results I would have expected. I know it is hard to MMQ, but I would have suspected better.
 
I know it is not a crushing military defeat, but any action that makes it more dificult for the insugents to operate is a victory in my book. It would have been better if they had hidden a claymore or two outside the doorway to catch them as they retreated.
 
Here's my question.

Why didn't they try to capture anybody for information? I was reading "Secret Commando's" last night by John Plaster who was a Green Beret & member of SOG. According to his book, at one time they captured a NVA truck driver who provided plenty of information & they didn't have the equipment that exists now*. Why didn't these soldiers do that?:confused: I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just wondering.


*Tasers, etc.
 
You want US troops to taser the bad guys?

Wow. I really don't know how to respond to that.

For those of you questioning how well the ambush went, frankly, you don't have a clue, and you weren't there.
 
Tasers? What are you smoking :D These guys are the worst of the worst. They'd just as soon cut your head off as look at you. They also have a tendency to BLOW UP when cornered if you dont' kill them first. Our guys did great in the circumstances.
 
"They also have a tendency to BLOW UP when cornered if you dont' kill them first."

I didn't think of that.

"You want US troops to taser the bad guys? Wow. I really don't know how to respond to that."


I didn't say they had to use Tasers. I was just asking why they didn't try to capture a BG for info. I realize that they already had info on the computers but information is like ammo. There is never enough.:D
 
ven please tell me you don't seriously think our guys need to be walking around over there with tazers :banghead:
 
Are you guys getting too dumb to read my posts before you mock me?:fire: . I never said that they HAD to use Tasers. They are other means of disabling someone without killing them. We have had countless threads about this. Batons, rubber shotgun rounds, etc. And those are just things that we civilians can own. I have no doubt that the Army folks get stuff 100 times better than we get.
 
It's funny how minds work. V merely meant to Tazer them to capture them via non-lethal means.

But everyone's initial impression, (mine too) wat that he meant to repeatedly shock them to extract intel. That says lots more about us and the assumptions we make than it does about V... :( Sorry.

V,

Tasering the insurgents seems like a good idea, but in practice, a Taser wouldn't work well in a fluid combat situation. The range is limited, and you only get one shot. The Taser only works well in static police situations where a non-compliant or threatening suspect is cornered, or not moving a lot.

A fluid battlefront where everyone's running and shooting, and actualy getting a hit on an insurgent with the wires is probably a million-to-one shot.
 
Okay... :confused: Well back to the original topic. They did a great job. I wonder if the reason they didn't kill all the insurgents is because they threw down their weapon or slung it over their backs. Maybe they realised they were $%^#& and they decided to just pick up the pieces and go home.
 
"V merely meant to Tazer them to capture them via non-lethal means."

Bingo.

"But everyone's initial impression, (mine too) was that he meant to repeatedly shock them to extract intel."

If we were that desperate for information, I'd simply threaten to place a piece of Jimmy Dean sausage on his head. The muslim religion says that once they have touched pig, they will still burn in hell even if they die as martyrs:evil: .
 
We used the interpreter on the phone tactics last time I was over there, isn't really anything new. The only danger is that sometimes phones can be rigged to blow up. Like everything else, it is a gamble.

I don't know what the regulations on claymores are now, but when I was over there this last winter, we had to have high level approval to even be issued claymores. I cannot say exactly how high, as I do not know, but it was higher than our MEU commander who was a Colonel.

As far as using non-lethal weapons on insurgents goes, who is going to carry that crap on top of their lethal weapons and ammo? When your average load is pushing 80-100lbs for a normal foot patrol, that extra weight adds up quickly. I have no problem carrying things that matter, but I really do not think that the use of non-lethal weapons in an enviroment where your opponents are using lethal weapons is a good tacticl judgment.
 
"I really do not think that the use of non-lethal weapons in an enviroment where your opponents are using lethal weapons is a good tacticl judgment."


I never said that they should just carry LTL equipment. By all means have plenty of frag grenades on hand. What all do they make you carry that weighs 100 pounds?:confused:
 
"I really do not think that the use of non-lethal weapons in an enviroment where your opponents are using lethal weapons is a good tacticl judgment."


I never said that they should just carry LTL equipment. By all means have plenty of frag grenades on hand. What all do they make you carry that weighs 100 pounds?

I never assumed that you thought they should carry less than lethal only, just that I did not think the benefits of carrying LTL would outweigh the downfall of carrying more crap than what we already have.

As far as where all the weight we carry comes from, it comes from protective gear, ammo, weapons, water, and comm gear. Just the interceptor and helmet alone break 30 lbs. Add to that our ammo, plus any crew served weapon ammo that you may be lugging, demo, pyro and frags. Each item in and of itself does not weigh a lot, but put it all on at once and it will add up.

Now, to get back on topic, I think that 1 enemy KIA with 2 or more wounded at a cost of ZERO US casualties is not a bad ambush at all.
 
OMG!!! I can see the news. You mean we actually used a cell phone to lure the enemy into slaughter? There must be an investigation! Heads must roll! People must pay!
We should have just invited them back in for some tea and cookies and asked them to give up.
 
They did ask them to give up, they sent them polite initations to quit fighting with at least one of their names engraved on the back of the 55gr FMJ:evil:
 
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