Trouble at the ORP

Situation

You are a squad leader leading an ambush patrol through wooded terrain, which usually limits visibility to 50 meters or less. In addition to your three fire teams, which are well-equipped with claymores and grenades, you have a machinegun squad (two three-man teams, each with an M240G). You are equipped with a radio. Your squad is in its ambush site along a trail frequently used by the enemy. Your objective rally point (ORP), where you have left two Marines and your packs, is about 200 meters to the southwest.

It is about 0100, and you have been waiting for about 2 hours when automatic gunfire suddenly erupts from the direction of the ORP. The firing lasts only a few seconds and now it is silent again. It happened so quickly you can’t be certain, but your sense is that there were at least 2 weapons involved but certainly no more than 3 or 4. You try to recall the sound of the exchange to determine if any of the weapons were M16s, but you cannot be sure. It will be light at 0500. Your platoon’s patrol base is about 3 kilometers to the southeast.

It has now been 3 minutes since the incident and you have heard or seen no sign of activity from the direction of the ORP. What now, Sergeant?

Requirement

In 5 minutes decide on your course of action, issue any orders, and make any reports or requests. Then provide a sketch of your plan and an explanation of your decision. Submit your solution to the Marine Corps Gazette, TDG #98-5, P.O. Box 1775, Quantico, VA 22134 or fax 703-640-0823.

Meeting at ‘The Mounds’

This TDG should look familiar. Its scenario is essentially the same as the one encountered in TDG #97-1 for which three solutions are given on the preceding pages. There is one major difference however-this time you are the enemy. How does having read pages 83-85-having looked at three alternate ways your opponent might see the situationinfluence your decision? Does it help you to have “worn your opponent’s shoes” for a few minutes? Is “wearing his shoes” part of what is meant by orienting on the enemy?

Situation

You are a squad leader in Company K, 3d Battalion, 4th Marines. The company is making a movement to contact, moving south toward Liberty. The company’s mission is to locate and destroy any sizable enemy forces en route. The company commander has made it clear that the march objective is merely a reference point for the direction of movement; the true objective is the enemy. You are fighting an aggressive infantry force that when assembled usually either pushes rapidly ahead to bypass your positions or calls in supporting fires and attacks them.

Your platoon is the advance guard, and your squad has the point. Your lieutenant has given you the following instructions:

I’m relying on you to develop the situation to the best of your ability whenever you make contact. If you can overpower the enemy yourself, fine. If it’s a sizable enemy force, my intent is for you to develop the situation advantageously for the rest of the company. Try to maneuver to fix the enemy so they can’t escape and so the CO can bring the rest of the company to bear. I’ll support you with the other two squads.

Your squad is in a wedge formation with 1st Fire Team on the left, 2d Fire Team in the center leading, and 3d Fire Team on the right. An attached machinegun squad is located with you behind 2d Fire Team. The platoon commander is about 200 meters behind you, and the rest of the platoon is about 300-400 meters back.

Your squad is moving through an area known as The Mounds, generally following a road that winds its way toward Liberty. The terrain is unusual and you have Marines on both sides of the road alert for possible contact. As 2d Fire Team crests one of the mounds, you see the Marines drop quickly to the prone position and begin firing. You crawl forward to the crest and can see an enemy force firing from a stream bed about 300 meters south. Another position soon opens up from a mound to the left front. You estimate the total enemy strength so far at about platoon strength. You notice that 1st Fire Team has also taken up firing positions on a mound to your left. 3d Fire Team and the machineguns are in defilade to your right rear. Supporting arms begins exploding on the road about 200 meters to your rear. What do you do, Sergeant?

Requirement

In a time limit of 2 minutes, issue any orders you would give. Once this is done, describe any additional action you would take and provide a sketch of your plan and an explanation of your decision.

Ambush at Dusk

You are the squad leader of 1st Squad, 1st Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. You are fighting in a tropical jungle against guerrilla forces armed with small arms, light machineguns, and sometimes mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Recently, Company C has been conducting patrols in a populated region to counter increased insurgent activity. On this day, your platoon, with a machinegun squad attached, is running a security patrol to locate and destroy any enemy forces. Dusk is approaching-within the hour, you estimate. Your squad is the point of the platoon patrol column, some 200 yards forward of the platoon’s main body as you advance north through a rice paddy, paralleling a four-foot dike some hundred meters to your right. As your squad picks its way through a bamboo fence at the northern edge of the paddy, one ‘ of your Marines trips a boobytrap, suffering a severe leg wound. With the corpsman and platoon radioman, the platoon commander hustles forward to investigate. While they are still 150 meters away, the enemy suddenly opens fire with automatic weapons from the village, and the platoon commander is hit. The steady volume of enemy fire from the village has 2d and 3d squads pinned down in the rice paddy. After tending to the lieutenant, the corpsman makes his way forward under fire to your position, followed shortly by one machinegun team. The corpsman tells you the lieutenant is in a bad way. You wish you had a radio, but the radioman is pinned down near the lieutenant. The enemy fire against your position is sporadic; the two squads in the paddy, on the other hand, are returning fire but appear unable to move. You estimate that the sun will disappear within a half hour. You have no communications with your platoon sergeant. What do you do?

Requirement

In a time limit of five minutes, describe the actions you would take and the instructions you would issue to your team leaders. Include an overlay sketch and provide a brief discussion of the rationale behind your actions. Submit your solutions to Marine Corps Gazette, Tactical Decision Game #91-11, Box 1775, Quantico, VA 22134. The Gazette will publish the author’s and other solutions in the January 1992 issue.

Bermside Ambush

by 1stLt Michael A. Hanson

Situation 

You are a Squad Leader in Company B, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment. Your squad is conducting a patrol moving north, parallel to a road situated on a berm about one and a half meters above ground. The terrain surrounding the berm is flat with multiple scattered rock piles about one meter tall. Your squad takes fire from a light machine gun across the road about 100 meters ahead. As you instinctively lunge for cover, you see an enemy infantry squad maneuvering toward you from behind the berm on the opposite side of the road. They begin throwing hand grenades across the road at your Marines. The first few explode far enough away that none of your Marines are hit, but the grenades are getting closer. You hear enemy voices.

You have a thirteen Marine rifle squad with a standard complement of M203 grenades, M67 fragmentation grenades, and one AT4 Rocket. What do you do?

Requirements

What commands do you give your squad in your frag order?

Provide a sketch depicting the actions you expect your fire teams to take as a result of your frag order.

Submit your solution by email to [email protected] or to the Marine Corps Gazette, TDG 01-19, Box 1775, Quantico, VA, 22134. The Gazette will publish solutions in an upcoming issue.

>Author’s Note: This scenario is adapted from one described in Colder Than Hell: A Marine Rifle Company At Chosin Reservoir, by Joseph Owen. It has been updated to reflect current rifle squad table of organization and equipment. The terrain has also been modified for simplicity.

Routine Patrol, Part II

By the Staff, Marine Corps Gazette

Situation

You are the squad leader of 3d Squad, 2d Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. You have been leading a day security patrol east of the company positon at COP Ritz past the Al Mumeet Mosque and southeast of several abandoned farms and fields thickly overgrown with shoulder-high sawgrass and upland cane.

After exiting the southeast corner of COP Ritz and departing friendly lines at Checkpoint One, the patrol moved past the AUXFOR (“oxfords”) vehicle checkpoint east of Checkpoint One without incident. You observed the AUXFOR sitting in the shade, chewing khat and talking. Several were talking on local cell phones.

After passing Checkpoints Two and Three, you turn northeast into the tall grass of a fallow field. After moving about 250 meters, your forward security reaches the road leading east from the mosque. You send two fire teams (-), three Marines each, to establish security on the east and west flanks of the patrol and begin sending the patrol across the road to establish far-side security.

Half of the patrol makes it across the road and starts taking steady small arms fire from somewhere north or northwest of your positon. No one is hit, but the fire does not cease as everyone takes cover. Your point and cover men report back that the fire may be coming from the buildings between Checkpoints Four and Five. The high grass provides good concealment but no cover, and you order the lead elements to break contact and move south of the road.

Despite the steady fire from the northwest, everyone makes it to cover on the low ground south of the road, and you consolidate the main body of the patrol in a tight 360-degree perimeter. You leave your flank security teams in positon.

After reporting your situation to the company, you receive the following change of mission:

Maintain contact with the anti-MUGA force in the vicinity of Checkpoints Four and Five. Link up with the Company QRF (quick reaction force), which will be approaching from the west toward Checkpoint Four. On order, support the QRF’s attack to clear the buildings between Checkpoints Four and Five by fire.

Soon after receipt of the change of mission, your west flank security team reports that it sounds as if the AUXFORs around Checkpoint One are firing their weapons in the direction of Checkpoints Four and Five.

There is no change to your patrol’s organization, and you still have ten combat-effective Marines including yourself and the following attachments for the patrol, making a total of twenty men:

  • One Machine-Gun Team (one M240B 7.62 machine gun, two Marines).
  • One MUGA Commando Fire Team (four Commandos with AK-47s and rifle grenades) plus one Commando Machine-Gun Team (one RPK 7.62 machine gun, two-man crew).
  • One Hospitalman, 3rd Class.
  • One MUGA Commando Interpreter.

Fire support remains limited to the battalion’s organic mortars and Marine rotary-wing CAS on alert +15 at the battalion FOB (forward operating base). There is one registered target at Checkpoint Seven: AB1107. The Al Mumeet Mosque is established in all aviation special instructions (SPINS) as the center of a 200m by 200m rotary-wing attack positon, “AP Snake.”

The battalion’s alert +5 section of medevac helicopters has a dedicated radio net. Response time is less than 10 minutes, and the JTF (joint task force) Level III treatment facility is 45 minutes flight time.

Your communications are limited to unencrypted, VHF and UHF, voice-only radios.

Requirement

What are your orders to the patrol?

What coordinating instructions for the QRF do you relay back to the company?

Instructions

Quickly formulate your plans and issue your orders. Provide a brief discussion of the rationale behind your actions. Submit your solutions by email at [email protected] or to the Marine Corps Gazette, TDG 03-18, Box 1775, Quantico, VA 22134. The Gazette will publish solutions in an upcoming issue.

The Routine Patrol

By the Staff, Marine Corps Gazette

Situation 

You are the squad leader of 3d Squad, 2d Platoon, A Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines. Your squad has been ordered to conduct a day security patrol east of the company position at COP (combat outpost) Ritz. Your designated patrol route (depicted on Figure 1) will take you out past the Al Mumeet Mosque and southeast to the far side of several abandoned farms and fields thickly overgrown with shoulder-high sawgrass and upland cane. You and your Marines have been on patrol both day and night, approximately every 48 to 72 hours, ever since the company occupied COP Ritz. You and your team leaders are highly experienced in patrolling the congested area surrounding the COP and have been in more firefights than you can remember. On several occasions, you have had to call in the Company’s quick reaction force (QRF) to reinforce your patrol after making contact.

Your mission is: No later than 0900, depart friendly lines and conduct a security patrol along the designated route east of the Al Mumeet Mosque neighborhood in order to disrupt any anti-MUGA forces in the area and demonstrate a MUGA/CJTF presence. Mission has priority.

You designate your first fire team leader, LCpl Santeira, as your assistant patrol leader and LCpl Sharpe as your radio operator.

For today’s patrol, you have 10 combat effective Marines including yourself, and the following attachments for the patrol make a total of 20 men.

  • One Machine-Gun Team (one M240B 7.62 machine gun, two Marines).
  • One MUGA Commando fire team (four Commandos with AK-47s and rifle grenades) plus one Commando machine-gun team (one RPK 7.62 machine gun, two-man crew).
  • One Hospitalman, 3rd Class.
  • One MUGA Commando Interpreter.

Fire support remains limited to the battalion’s organic mortars and Marine rotary-wing CAS on alert +15 at the battalion FOB. There is one registered target at Checkpoint Seven: AB1107. The Al Mumeet Mosque is established in all Aviation Special Instructions (SPINS) as the center of a 200m by 200m rotary-wing attack position, “AP Snake.”

The battalion’s alert +5 section of medevac helicopters has a dedicated radio net. Response time is less than 10 minutes, and the JTF Level III treatment facility is 45 minutes flight time.

Your communications are limited to unencrypted, VHF and UHF, voice-only radios. You are monitoring and reporting checkpoints to mark the patrol’s progress on the company tactical net.

Requirement 1

How do you organize your patrol for movement? Where do you assign the machine-gun teams and all-around security?

The patrol exits the southeast corner of COP Ritz and departs friendly lines at Checkpoint One. You move past the AUXFOR vehicle checkpoint east of Checkpoint One without incident. You count ten “oxfords” sitting in the shade, chewing khat and talking. Several are talking on local cell phones.

The patrol continues past Checkpoints Two and Three and turns sharply northeast into the tall grass of a fallow field. In about 250 meters, your forward security reaches the road leading east from the mosque.

Requirement 2

How does your patrol treat this linear danger area? Do you sprint across, deliberately establish security before crossing, or do something else?

As half of your patrol makes it across the road, you start taking steady small-arms fire from somewhere north or northwest of your positon. No one is hit, but the fire does not cease as everyone takes cover. What do you do?

Requirement 3

Do you continue the mission along the designated patrol route, attempt to break contact and consolidate the patrol south of the road, or change the mission to locate and close with whoever is firing on the patrol? Do you do something completely different? What reports do you radio to the company?