Training Video: OBUA Attacks
SP sent the following videos, with this comment:
Thought you might find these OBUA (MOUT) videos interesting. From 2005 so somewhat old by today’s standards. Each video is quite long but gives a fairly good insight into how urban ops are conducted and serves to illustrate just how slow and disorientating it can be. Certainly shows that using SWAT/LE bollocks to gain entry against even a determined lone opponent would lead to said SWAT team getting minced.
I believe the videos are of a TA unit (i.e. Reserves) that were preparing them for their receiving units before pre-deployment training for Iraq.
Second video shows the importance of covering your flanks, as demonstrated about 6 minutes into the 2nd video when one of the exercise “enemy” sneaks up to them.
You won’t see anything ‘super-high-speed’ or ‘tacticool’ in these videos. You will see confusion, disorientation and and some blank looking faces at times. These guys are training, this may have been the first time some of them were doing this, and that’s why we train.
One of my observations is that the videos illustrate the need on the squad leaders behalf for communication, grip and leadership. In places you can see where they needed to get a little more forward and simply get a grip of the guys, rather than trying to control them by remote control. I’ll explain why they were doing what they were doing in a moment.
The first video has an advance to contact and clearance of two outlying farm complexes. The second video then takes the unit into the clearance of the main suburban/urban area. By watching the videos you will also get an idea for what larger formation (platoon/company size) movement looks like.
The farm complexes could be a prepper’s retreat. Imagine that, when they deploy the British U.N. Redcoat troops! But then again, killer bees would have been an adequate defense, don’t you think? BTW: killer bees: no, I am not losing my grip on sanity; killer bees was a comment that I love to refer to, from an actual commenter on one of my blog posts whose retreat defense involved shooting into his killer bee hives and thus setting them upon attackers. I have never been able to let that go since….
Once they get into the main urban complex, you can see the challenges presented by angles of fire and the need to cover flanks and suppress enemy in order to get troops up to and into buildings.
What you see them doing is moving up to the complex then laying down suppressing fire in order to get a squad into the first building, in what is called the ‘break in battle.’ Once the first squad is in, they are trying to funnel through the next squads, clearing the buildings as they go. The challenges are crossing the open areas and covering all angles against enemy fire and counter-attack. The final attack takes place in what used to be an actual housing estate so is very real ground – it could be a suburban area in Boston, and imagine how the goons would have done there if it had gone kinetic and fire was coming in from all angles…..not so well I think!
When they are room clearing, they are adopting the classic British Army OBUA tactics of breaking the squad (8 men) down into:
Assault Group 1 – 2 men.
Assault Group 2 – 2 Men.
Command Group – squad leader and link man
Cover group/assault group 3 – 2 men.
This is why you see the squad leader hanging back a little. What they are practicing is for the squad leader to fire an assault team to into a room, they clear it, and declare what exits there are. The squad leader should then make a decision and fire the next assault team through into the next room. In my opinion there are a few instances where the squad leader should be further forward – he should really be into the room on the back of the assault team, as they declare it clear, to rapidly make a call which way to go next. That helps keep momentum up. This all involves planning on the fly because they don’t know the layout of the buildings.
The ‘link man’ is used to pass messages back and forwards. ‘Every man is a link man.”
Communication, grip and aggression are vital for OBUA, as well as flank protection and fire support.