MOUT Confusion
This is Steven Petrick Posting:
When I was an officer trainee one of the training events was "MOUT" (Military Operations on Urban Terrain), i.e., fighting in a town or city.
As part of the training the unit I was in simulated an attack on such a site while another unit defended it. We wound up with a good example of how confused such fighting can be.
At one point I was sent to find and bring up a lost fire team. When I returned to the building the command post had been in, with the lost fire team in tow, I found the building empty. Drawing the logical (and correct) conclusion that the unit had advanced, I led the fire team forward to where I thought the command post would move forward too.
The new building we entered was also empty, so we pushed on from there.
Little did I know but the team I was guiding had now pushed on beyond enemy lines, enemy lines which "closed" behind us. We were now cut off with no communications to tell our own side where we were.
The "enemy" soon found us, and the situation became one of the enemy attacking us and forcing us to "retreat" (actually advance deeper behind their lines), while our own guys were attacking and forcing the enemy's main line to retreat. We had to fall back deeper behind their lines, or risk being trapped in the building we were in, i.e., get out before the next building behind us was occupied by the enemy.
We fell back through two other buildings (there were not enough of us to try to "hold" any of the buildings), finally finding ourselves trapped in a building whose exit on the far side was completely blocked. Here we were forced to make a "last stand". Through all of this we inflicted "casualties" out of proportion to our own numbers (mostly from the first building where our presence came as a great surprise to the enemy detachment that was moving to occupy it), and thus contributed greatly to the success of our unit in clearing the town, but none of us "lived" to tell the tale of our accidental exploit.
When I was an officer trainee one of the training events was "MOUT" (Military Operations on Urban Terrain), i.e., fighting in a town or city.
As part of the training the unit I was in simulated an attack on such a site while another unit defended it. We wound up with a good example of how confused such fighting can be.
At one point I was sent to find and bring up a lost fire team. When I returned to the building the command post had been in, with the lost fire team in tow, I found the building empty. Drawing the logical (and correct) conclusion that the unit had advanced, I led the fire team forward to where I thought the command post would move forward too.
The new building we entered was also empty, so we pushed on from there.
Little did I know but the team I was guiding had now pushed on beyond enemy lines, enemy lines which "closed" behind us. We were now cut off with no communications to tell our own side where we were.
The "enemy" soon found us, and the situation became one of the enemy attacking us and forcing us to "retreat" (actually advance deeper behind their lines), while our own guys were attacking and forcing the enemy's main line to retreat. We had to fall back deeper behind their lines, or risk being trapped in the building we were in, i.e., get out before the next building behind us was occupied by the enemy.
We fell back through two other buildings (there were not enough of us to try to "hold" any of the buildings), finally finding ourselves trapped in a building whose exit on the far side was completely blocked. Here we were forced to make a "last stand". Through all of this we inflicted "casualties" out of proportion to our own numbers (mostly from the first building where our presence came as a great surprise to the enemy detachment that was moving to occupy it), and thus contributed greatly to the success of our unit in clearing the town, but none of us "lived" to tell the tale of our accidental exploit.
posted by Federation Commander at 9:11 AM
<< Home