Historical Counter Guerilla Tactics

[DemonArchangel]

How do you effectively counter effectively waged guerilla warfare?
I wish to see some historical examples please./

[Ironside]

I don't remember exactly but the tactics am I sure of
One of the Boer wars.
The British commander started to deploy outpost along the railroads and commanded them to report often. Using this tactics the Boers forces were tracked and could be ambushed and destroyed. (dead outpost= passing Boer forces).

[Rosacrux]

Check anything about Rodesia - the whities did an extremely good job forming small, ultra-mobile forces ("sticks") four men each, and deploying the fast everywhere. They used helicopters for all the "sticks" and created the most mobile strike force in history.

The tactic included a great deal of spying, use of informers, quick "retaliation" or "punishment" action, small-scale terror campaigns, effort to deprive the guerillas off the support of the local population etc.

Also, you might want to check on the way the French managed to win most battles against the Liberation front in Algeria, before politics deprived them from any chance to win that one.

Also, the Israelis have extremely extensive knowledge on the subject - you might want to dig some of their manuals.
The Greek army in the Greek civil war (late 1940s) has managed to defeat the Communist Guerillas by using conventional methods, but this was a full-scale operation, the guerillas had little or no support from the locals and the government had extensive support from outside (USA-Britain).

[gaelic cowboy]

Quote[/b] (DemonArchangel @ Feb. 05 2004,18:38)]How do you effectively counter effectively waged guerilla warfare?
I wish to see some historical examples please./
You cant you can only hope the other side get's sick of fighting before you fullstop.

[Beirut]

There was program called Phoenix in Vietnam that worked very well. If I rememeber correctly, the Spec Ops people would assasinate insurgent "tax collectors" and higher ups suspected of helping the guerillas.

Guerillas need food and money, so you go after the places where they would get the food and money and kill their agents there. Starve them.

Also, there is T.E.Lawrence's belief that to effectively counter guerillas, you need a guard station with twenty men for every four square miles. I don't know how Colonel Lawrence came up with this figure, but he was an expert guerilla fighter himself and infinitely smarter than me, so I'll have to take his word for it.

[kataphraktoi]

In my country of mALAYSIA, during the Communist uprising, but reall a cheap British ploy to protect their economic interests, the Brits isolated the guerillas by cutting of their sources of recruits: the Chinese.

Their trapped the guerillas in their hide outs till they surrendered. Mind you, Malaysia's terrain is similar to Vietnam's.

[gaelic cowboy]

Well in ireland the English haven't managed to stop a campagin against them yet there are still groups fighting against there presence today.

[Somebody Else]

Well... to stop effectively waged guerrilla warfare is impossible. If it's effectively waged, that means it's winning. Ineffectively waged on the other hand...

One can only really hope to contain guerrillas, if stopping them is the plan, then one really has to remove the focus for their fight.

Because of the type of warfare which guerrillas use, they will almost always have local superiority in numbers - so unless one can get reinforcements to an engagement before the conclusion of the fight, there are problems.

If this seems utterly obvious/silly/irrelevent just ignore it.

[bhutavarna]

the main problem for any regular army when confronting guerrilla warfare is the difficulty to pinpoint exactly who the enemies are and where they hide. because of this, it's almost impossible to win using conventional tactics.

there are a few ways to win this kind of warfare, depending on the nature of the war and the enemy itself.

the easiest way is assanination. kill the leader/s and the enemy will eventually be detroyed. i'm sure not what a good example is.

another method that is widely employed throughout history is one called chain of forts. the idea is that a series of fortified position, usually within short distance from each other, will be constructed in areas where guerilla activities are frequent. if the enemy attacks a fort or an area near a fort, troops can be summoned quickly to the location of attack from nearby forts and repel it. this method has been known to work well in restricting guerrilla activities within the forts control. boer war is a good example, i think. i know for sure that the dutch used this tactics when quelling rebellion in java, dutch east indies, around 1820s

finally, there is a method that i'm not sure what the term is, but is commonly used and is the cruelest of all. this method employs evacuation of civilian in area where guerrilla fighters are known to hide to another location where they can be monitored and controlled, usually concentration camps. the basic idea of this tactic is to separate guerrillas from civilian whereby cutting of any support they receive from them. with no civilian around, it's easier to find guerillas and kill them. this tactics is used during boer war and more recently by the indonesian army to quell acehnese insurgents.

that's all that i know.

[Cazbol]

The method the British seem to rely on involves getting on good terms with the local population. Having small parties of special forces (typically 4 man SAS patrols) visit villages in the conflict zones on a regular basis to establish goodwill and trust with the locals has proven quite successful. They're referred to as hearts and minds operations. The prime example would be the Borneo conflict but it also worked in Oman. This primarily serves to cut off support to the guerillas and provide intelligence from the locals which is of primary importance in a guerilla war. I don't think Ireland is a good example as they're rather using terrorist tactics than guerilla tactics.

As for more conventional military tactics it's extemely important to cut off the guerillas escape routes in order to cause casualties. Borneo is again an example but also Afghanistan in the later part of the war when the Soviets had adapted a bit. They'd drop Spetznaz troops behind the trails of the guerillas and set up ambushes.

In Vietnam the Americans used an ingenious dirty trick against the NVA/Vietcong. It was called operation Elder Son and involved making alterations to the ememy's ammunition and then feeding it into the NVA's distribution system. These alterations had the effect that mortar bombs exploded in the mortars and rifle ammunition would blow up into the soldiers face. There were examples of entire batteries of mortars being found destroyed this way and their crew dead. Furthermore, the Americans were able to feed bogus mail into the NVA's distibution system that addressed the problem of faults being found in some Chinese manufactured ammunition and this seemed to work quite well in misleading the NVA. It's not a strategy that will win a war but it's a great dirty trick that helps.

The book Fighting Dirty by Peter Harclerode has many examples of guerilla counterwarfare and is an interesting read.

[el_slapper]

Methods may be efficient, but if local population supports the guerilla, you're screwed - remember Algeria, Vietnam or Rhodesia..... That's the key in Iraq - where will local support go?

[Cazbol]

Quote[/b] (el_slapper @ Feb. 12 2004,04:31)]Methods may be efficient, but if local population supports the guerilla, you're screwed - remember Algeria, Vietnam or Rhodesia..... That's the key in Iraq - where will local support go?
An example of the opposite would be Tibet. The pure weight of numbers on the Chinese side was enough to drive out the guerillas and even convince the guerillas with bases in Nepal that incursions were futile. The people's support isn't always enough.

[Spino]

To effectively counter guerillas you either murder, enslave or relocate the local population that is supporting them. Take away what they value the most and the means to support themselves and guerillas stop becoming a problem. Combine that with sufficient counter-insurgent forces trained to eliminate the guerillas and the problem is solved.

Basically fear and the means to back up your rule with swift and brutal reprisals are a conquerer's best friends. It worked for the Romans, the Macedonians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Mongols, the Japanese, the Red Chinese, the Soviets, the Nazis, etc. While winning over the hearts and minds of the conquered without bloodshed is the most desirable outcome there are precious few instances in history where this strategy actually worked on the local population. Alexander the Great's 'liberation' of Egypt is a perfect example of the 'soft sell' approach. In contrast to the draconian laws and brutal oppression of local culture and religion at the hands of the Persians Alexander provided a stark contrast by taking a tolerant, open minded approach to the local population. Hitler had the opportunity to do the same thing when his forces blitzkrieged through the Ukraine and Baltic states only to find those populations incredibly grateful to be liberated from Stalin's tyrannical regime. However the Nazis' asinine Germanic supremacist policies as enforced by SS units soon squashed any hope of winning over the hearts and minds of any people conquered by them.

[Lazul]

Well I would say that it is all about the support of the people. A regim that does not have the support of its people is doomed.

So its a matter of what kind of regim we are talking about. Take Vietnam for exampel; Its was a perfect guerilla warfare and the US was really doomed to fail from start.

If "you" are the regim that does not have the support of the people and guerillas start to attack trains and other infrastructual "things" its best to just pack your bag, get on your privet jet and find a corrupt state that might want to help you.

Well it is ofcourse poosible to defeat a guerilla but only for a while... if a regim does not have the support of the people the guerillas will be back.

"if you supress the poeple twice as hard, they will strike back twice as hard"...
heard that somewhere, think it was a rap lyric... "Loop Troop" maybe?

[gaelic cowboy]

Quote[/b] (Cazbol @ Feb. 12 2004,03:24)] I don't think Ireland is a good example as they're rather using terrorist tactics than guerilla tactics.
Try Ireland in 1921 for guerilla tactics every Briish tactic failed and they eventually had to face facts and go.
They tried a brutal methods and they failed miserably no support no stay simple as that.

[Cazbol]

Conceded. I was only thinking of the current conflict and the modern day IRA, but should therefore have said Northern Ireland.

If one doesn't say what one means, how can one mean what one says? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-embarassed.gif

[gaelic cowboy]

Quote[/b] (Cazbol @ Feb. 15 2004,15:08)]Conceded. I was only thinking of the current conflict and the modern day IRA, but should therefore have said Northern Ireland.

If one doesn't say what one means, how can one mean what one says? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-embarassed.gif
No harm done http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Boulis]

I think Spino makes a very good point: there's brutal and then there's brutal. I know a few things about Greece during WW II, for example. As you you guys probably know, the Greek resistance was extremely aggressive, not dissimilar from Tito's Partisans across the border. Yet, throughout the war, the Germans had only one to two first-class divisions stationed there (aided by the standard third-class auxiliary divisions marked for counter-insurgency -- see John Keegan's Second World War).
That's because neither Greece nor Yugoslavia ever really posed as much of a problem to the German war machine as many people think (again, Keegan and others). They were brave and courageous and used excellent guerilla tactics and had some notable successes. But, in the end, as many people noted on this thread, guerillas rely on the support of the local population. The Nazis, to counter that, would simply wipe out whole villages in reprisal for the death of one or two German soldiers. I have personally come across a primary source document (a directive of an SS colonel) that ordered his unit to kill everything in a particular Greek village to within a 5 km radius, including livestock and domesticated animals. Predicatbly, resistance died out quickly in the area under discussion. Some of you might know that the Nazis did a similar thing in Czechoslavakia with the village of Lidice when the local SS chief Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated. In the Nuremberg trials, Herman Goering, when asked about counter-resistance methods in Greece, simply said "In Greece, there were a thousand Lidices."

[nokhor]

a long long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, a rebel alliance was doing hit and run tactics against a galactic empire. the imperials would find a rebel base only to find they had escaped gone. and with craploads of planets, the rebels could hide anywhere and have support of populations.

so what did the empire do? they built a death star that blew up a completely demilitarized planet. why? there were no rebel military units there, it was an object lesson so all the planetary populations elsewhere in the galaxy think "if the empire does that to a demilitarized planet, what the hell would they do to us if we harbored rebels?"

the rebels got lucky, blew up the death star 1 and began hiding in non-populated planets like hoth. what did the empire do? wasted time in sending vader with a task force chasing down dead ends.

so the emperor says to himself "how do i make the rebels stand and fight? by giving them a target they have to hit on a massive scale otherwise they lose the war. hence the creation of death star 2, [clandestinely fully operational] forces the rebel fleet to try and hit it, because once the death star does become operational no inhabited planet can afford to support the rebellion, [see what happened with previous demilitarized planet." imperials trap rebel fleet and are destroying until all that jibber-jabber about jedis and a family on both sides of the war crap.

point: of course this isn't a real live situation but the moral is, for a successful counterinsurgency, create an object or situation that forces the insurgency to fight a last ditch conventional battle [make them fight your way] or they risk loosing the war by not doing so.

[Longshanks]

Methods may be efficient, but if local population supports the guerilla, you're screwed - remember Algeria, Vietnam or Rhodesia..... That's the key in Iraq - where will local support go?

I disagree. The US could have won in Vietnam, it didn't because the American people were never fully behind it, Washington lacked the political will to see it through, and the military had one handed tied behind its back at all times. If the political will had been there the war would have ended differently. Or for example had the US been another totalitarian dictatorship where public opinion at home is not that important.

Bui Tin, an NVA colonel who had served on Giap's staff stated that the North could not have won the war had the US cut the Ho Chi Minh trail. Washington never would allow such a large scale deployment into Cambodia however. He also stated that Tet had been a disaster.(quoting Giap)
Had the US not begun troop reductions following Tet and instead gone on the offensive, the war would have been won. The VC were finished and the NVA was near it's breaking point.

[Tribesman]

All military methods of beating guerilla warfare tend to fall into the category of war crimes once the conflict is over http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[meravelha]

It is not possible to 'win' militarily against someone who does not acknowledge defeat.
Many of the examples above of supposed military successes in counter-guerrilla warfare were employed by regimes that no longer exist.
The reason, imo, that military options don't in fact work is that they are not addressing a military problem but a political one.

You cannot say you have beaten someone until _they_ agree to a peace. Sooner or later negotiations are always required in which the political aims of the combattants must be addressed.

That process may as well be started sooner rather then later.

There is one other alternative.
Genocide of the entire intransigent population has been used in the past on many occasions, but is unlikely to present itself as a policy option for a modern state.

[Cebei]

It is said that during the last days of the battle against PKK, Turkish commandos were dropped into tight mountain passes with DESERT HELICOPTERS (means heavy, unable to maneuvre and big). I dont know how they did it, but it was clear that they were already past the business usual, and trying new tastes. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

[SwordsMaster]

Well, ive seen a documentary not so long ago about the tactics the americans (or the brits) used to fight terrorists in a city.

1.They made an intrusion in an area of the city and fetched men to search each building.

2.They follow the usual searching procedure, but leave 3 snipers on every roof.

3.Resume the search, and leave, leaving the snipers behind.

In a week or so, they return and repeat the process.

In the meantime the snipers would shoot at everyone they could identify as terrorists/guerrillas. As they have a quite good view of the city and it isnt easy to realize qhere the shots are coming from, it was quite successful.

[Hakonarson]

The only way guerillas can be defeated is to remove their suport by the local populatoin.

Back in the "good ol' days" you jsut killed everyone.

In the Boer War the Brits invented concentration camps )OK - so they didn't actually invent them, but hey improved the idea a lot) to isolate Boer guerillas from the civilians - ie the civilians were moved away.

These days it tends to be "hearts and minds" - it can work (cf Malasia, Borneo, some bits in Vietnam), but sometimes it doesn't because the population is just too hostile to you and/or intimidated (eg Ireland, other bits of vietnam).

[Oaty]

Well for those of you say there are no definite tactics to beat gorilla warfare, I'd say this is wrong. A nuclear bomb would stop the guerillas dead in there tracks. Just not a tactic I would use and would be a tactic frowned down upon by every nation but it would work. There was a thread on this about 3 months ago and had some good info on how nations dealt with it.

[squippy]

Quote[/b] (oaty @ April 29 2004,23:06)]Well for those of you say there are no definite tactics to beat gorilla warfare, I'd say this is wrong. A nuclear bomb would stop the guerillas dead in there tracks.
Nuking gorillas? Thats a bit harsh, all they want is banana's, man.

As for nuking guerillas, the problem is this: how do you know where to nuke, and how do you know if you got any? The VC and NVA made a point fo retrieving their dead from the battlefield in order to deny the US the ability to conduct an accurate kill count. With a nuke, you would never be in a position to assess how many IF ANY of the enemy were in the blast zone.

[Kommodus]

Yeah, I think Spino got it; it's what we refer to historically as "Total War," in which the goal is to anhihilate the entire enemy civilization. The cities would be completely destroyed and the land layed waste, while survivors would be forcibly removed from their homeland and scattered throughout foreign lands. If the culture is destroyed, the people lose their identity and have nothing left to fight for. Historical precedence shows that under such circumstances, they will quickly cease to exist as a people.

It is true that some ancient conquerors, such as Cyrus the Great of Persia and Alexander the Great, chose instead to let the conquered people keep their culture with little hindrance, so that the people would feel that they hadn't lost much, if anything. This was also effective in deterring uprisings.

Clearly, there are problems with both of these methods in modern times. We've recognized the utter brutality of "Total War" and (hopefully) left it behind forever. In a globalized world, it would never be tolerated anyway. The more tolerant method, however, is also unlikely to succeed when a conquered people refuse to let themselves be ruled by foreigners. It is, of course, impossible to win over their hearts and minds if their hostility towards their conquerors runs deep enough.

It is truly depressing to think about how ancient conflicts have bred an ever-increasing hatred between peoples, virtually ensuring a never-ending cycle of violence. The animosity between the Isrealis and Arabs, for example, is so ancient and deep I wonder if it will ever be healed. I don't even care how it started anymore, or who did what in the course of the conflict. I just wish they would make up their minds to stop living in a hell of their own creation. I can't even understand what kind of hatred could cause people to kill each other so recklessly.

I guess that's a little off-topic, but I needed to get that off my chest...

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

Quote[/b] (squippy @ April 30 2004,04:27)]
Quote[/b] (oaty @ April 29 2004,23:06)]Well for those of you say there are no definite tactics to beat gorilla warfare, I'd say this is wrong. A nuclear bomb would stop the guerillas dead in there tracks.
Nuking gorillas? Thats a bit harsh, all they want is banana's, man.
ROTFLMAO http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-laugh4.gif

Awesome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif





Although I have to say: POOR Gorillas... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-cry.gif

[Hakonarson]

Nuking the enemy populatoin is one way of removing their support http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-surprised.gif

[Crash]

The best book on the subject is "War in the Shadows: The Guerilla in History" by Robert Asprey. It must be read by anyone who is seriously interested in the subject.

It's true that the only way to defeat an indigenous guerilla insurgency (not an imported one) is to "nuke 'em". Wipe out the entire population and you wipe out the guerillas. That's why we've never totally defeated a guerilla army in modern times - genocide is bad politics these days. The successful example most often cited, the communist insurgencies in Malaysia and Indonesia, were mostly ethnic Chinese who despised by the real locals - the Malays and Indonesians.

My Dad was a intelligence specialist in the US Army during the War in Vietnam. He said that the Viet Cong were just peasants who were farmers in the daytime and guerillas at night. How do you defeat such an enemy? You go out to the fields and massacre every farmer and their children that you can find. That's the problem with guerilla wars...

[The_Emperor]

I agree the only way to remove a Guerilla enemy that has the support of the people is to remove the support of the people (hearts and minds work)... or relocate/eradicate the population.

Sadly the first choice is notoriously hard to pull off, and if the enemy is so hateful of you you may not be able to win any hearts and minds.

The latter falls under genocide or war crimes, not really a viable option for a modern nation, and often it tends to anger other people and can encourage people from nearby countries to join in against you. (Hence why most of the brutal regimes in history didn't survive)

Basically it is harder to defeat a guerilla force today than it ever has been in the past (because the second option is so widely frowned upon).

[squippy]

Quote[/b] (The_Emperor @ May 18 2004,05:29)]Basically it is harder to defeat a guerilla force today than it ever has been in the past (because the second option is so widely frowned upon).
Actually I don;t think any 'moral condemnation' has anything to do with it. Genocide is simply inefficient, because it gets you more enemies than you dispose of. What changed the situation is the AK47 and the LAW; in the old days, the formal armies had much higher combat effectiveness than outraged citizens, now that is not the case.

[Ironside]

Citera[/b] (squippy @ Maj 18 2004,06:37)]
Citera[/b] (The_Emperor @ May 18 2004,05:29)]Basically it is harder to defeat a guerilla force today than it ever has been in the past (because the second option is so widely frowned upon).
Actually I don;t think any 'moral condemnation' has anything to do with it. Genocide is simply inefficient, because it gets you more enemies than you dispose of. What changed the situation is the AK47 and the LAW; in the old days, the formal armies had much higher combat effectiveness than outraged citizens, now that is not the case.
They had a relativly strong weapons in the old days to.

And today, you can destroy every city in a country within a few days.

Then I roll in with the tanks. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif