MENA_Conflict

against all comers for years, eighteen years after the Taliban was defeated as a government and territory holding entity only to remain and expand, etc etc etc... We still talk about terror groups and to a probably greater extent, third world insurgencies beyond the realm of

terrorism, as though they're one-off, laughable, unprofessional, and ultimately not serious military institutions. Think about those numbers for a minute. SOMETHING these groups are doing is working, or they wouldn't exist anymore. There's something to the intangible factor of

will-to-fight that equates to staying power, but the other part of it is- these guys are training and fighting, and writing AARs from not only their wins but their losses. Too frequently, we, and I say that collectively to mean not only troop-leaders but defense policy, think

tankers, and even just enthusiasts, equate these long lasting abilities to survive (and thrive) with "well their opponents are third world militaries, of course they are". Their opponents may very well be the SAA, and ANA, and Iraqi mil, who vary tremendously in quality and

commitment (though the Iraqi military gets high marks for most-improved), but each one of them is backed by the air force and (some) ground forces of either the US or Russia. They're serious players in their own right, and they survived despite the tremendous firepower put

against them. So we're doing warfighters a massive disservice talking them down like they're not a real threat. And with that in mind, the following video from Incite the Believers operations room (mostly al-Qaeda in Syria, Hurras ad-Din) conducting small arms training really

highlights that for me. (click the link) https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1150748912438919174/pu/vid/1280x720/uDJ1LypuZlWQtyjY.mp4?tag=10 … This isn't to say every group trains like this, or that this is the most advanced training in the world (it's not), but it's growingly apparent that the groups experiencing success are capitalizing on that success,

and implementing lessons learned, often in the way of live fire training. In the above video, the fighters begin with proned out rifle and machine gun fire on a point target, demonstrating decent control, weapons carriage, and knowledge of their sights. Rate of fire could be

tighter, and it's clear they're not on Range 7 at Quantico or NTC in the Mojave, but they're making the expensive efforts to use valuable ammunition on improving firearms skills. Several RPG shots (RPG warheads being an expensive commodity) are fired. Presentation drills have

clearly been practiced as fighters go from a low ready, present and fire from the standing, drop to kneeling and fire, and drop to prone and fire. I'm less enthused about the firing on the move, but some of that is a Western bias against it. They *are* doing this in combat, so

they may as well train for it. At 0:40 this really caught my eye. This rotating stack drill is something I did HUNDREDS of times in my days as a grunt and it's a REALLY good drill. You either simulate a jam or empty mag or only load your mags with 2-5 rounds (and mix them up so

you don't know which mag has how many rounds). The stack leader fires and when he goes dry, he turns the opposite direction of the rifles, and rejoins the end of the stack where he reloads a new magazine. The second man now becomes the stack leader: lather, rinse, repeat.

The wounded man drill is of mixed utility, you can't really train for knowing if you'll be capability of returning fire when wounded (and may actually be a danger doing so), but actively training to remove a wounded colleague under fire is something every military force should be

doing. At 1:15 we see a bounding retreat, rushing 5-10m, dropping to a lower profile to reduce exposure, and returning fire, before bounding backwards again. Every Marine rifleman practices this for days in initial rifleman training (and most remember the bloody/calloused hands

that result from it) and likely many more times in their career. While it's been of minimal utility in the mostly urban fighting the US has fought in the last two decades, for serious force on force action, particularly in open terrain, team/squad bounding (forward or backwards)

is a tactic that deserves serious training in. Particularly when you've got a machine gun with you to really provide that suppression when people are moving. The next drill is seriously valuable because it has a visual and tangible result. You fail the drill if you don't hit the

balloon and while their distance isn't super great, that's a tiny target to be hitting when you've been running around all day, your adrenaline is up from firing live rounds, and you're running open sights. You KNOW if you missed immediately, no waiting till the exercise is over

to check. The final running gun-from-the-hip stuff is largely pointless, but if you're going to fight that way, may as well train doing it. And we conclude with them going to check their targets, and see the actual results of their handiwork. This is some fairly basic stuff. But

it's also valuable enough that modern militaries the world over run drills like this (or similar) and use them to reinforce brilliance in the basics. Don't do your troops a disservice by letting them believe (or worse yet telling them) that their opponent is some mindless yokel

who barely knows which end of the rifle the ammo goes in. Make them look at this stuff. Reinforce to them that their are people that wish to do them harm, or that they may have to do harm to, that are doing their best to get better at dealing death every day. There was a sign in

my last unit that said (loosely): "Somewhere, an underfed 120 man is carrying an 80lb of weapons and gear, up a mountain, in sandals, doing his very best to get better at killing you. What are you doing to get better today?" I think that sums this up well. End rant.