British troops quit Iraq base, adopt Rommel’s WWII tactics

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/August/focusoniraq_August130.xml§ion=focusoniraq&col=

BAGHDAD - British troops abandoned their base in Iraq’s southern Maysan province on Thursday, which has been under almost nightly attack, and prepared to head deep into the marshlands along the Iranian border to hunt gun smugglers.

Soldiers of the Queen’s Royal Hussars are to adopt tactics first pioneered by the famed Long Range Desert Group, a roving special forces unit that fought Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s German Afrika Korps in North Africa during World War Two.

The 600 combat troops are giving up their Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured fighting vehicles in favour of stripped-down Landrovers armed with machineguns. The units will remain constantly on the move and be resupplied by air drops.

“We are repositioning our forces to focus on border areas and deal with reports of smuggling of weapons and improvised explosive devices from across the border,” British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge told Reuters.

or else you'll soon see insurgents with Challenger tanks.....

...of this brilliant maneuver that Rommel lost in the end?


Don

from your own posting : Soldiers of the Queen’s Royal Hussars are to adopt tactics first pioneered by the famed Long Range Desert Group, a roving special forces unit that fought Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s German Afrika Korps in North Africa during World War Two.

The tactics are those of the Long Range Desert group - not Rommel's !

The Brits don't have the fuel and logistics problems Rommel had at The Battle of El Alamein and they aren't facing a 200,000 men and 1000 tanks...

The actual title from the Reuters piece is "British troops quit Iraq base, adopt WWII tactics". Note that "Rommel's" doesn't appear in the title of the original article; in it's current form, the OP title suggests the British are adopting Rommel's tactics, when the Reuters article makes it clear the British are returning to their counter-Rommel tactics of WWII.

my common sense "hopes" that the British disabled their hardware before going off...

...one of my favorites growing up as a kid.

I think they will be giving reports on whether Iran has a lot of weapons on their side of the marshlands and other things to help with the secret military operations.

"The 600 combat troops are giving up their Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured fighting vehicles in favour of stripped-down Landrovers armed with machineguns."

Maybe the plan is for the Queen’s Royal Hussars to exclusively patrol high desert areas, where it would be more difficult for combattants to plant and/or monitor IEDs due to the lack of cover from which to operate. I sure hope so, because LandRovers aren't gonna fair very well against the types of IEDs currently being fielded by the insurgency.

is to move way from populated areas into open country/hill areas. They'll be off road, camping at night time. Chances are there will be no IEDs. I guess satellite imagery will be fed to them telling where to target. They can't be going for speed : for that they'd use our Bowlers which are easily good for over 100mph off road.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

IEDs off road in thousands of miles of open country what would decide where you'd put them ?
Don't forget they're staying off road. Any body movement outside of the patrols would be picked up by satellite or drone - would be a doddle to pick off anyone trying to lay them.

Everything was boobytrapped...

because the guerrila forces know which routes the US and others *have* to take if they are doing patrols in cities and getting resupplied along MSRs and ASRs. They can then simply mine those with the certain knowledge that forces will eventually drive by.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

:toast:

It sounds like a great idea...for an action movie. Racing around the desert it hopped-up landrovers and shooting up the bad guys.

Of course, success at such heroics will depend on the locals in the area going into a coma and not informing the "bad guys" where the "good guys" are and that the "bad guys" are even more stupid than than the Brits and do nothing but wait to be killed.

Rommel? Sounds more like that other "bold" general named Custer.