Posted on 06/30/2007 8:43:56 PM PDT by bnelson44
Breaking: U.S. Dispatches Two Battalions To Al Anbar In Emergency Move To Battle Al Qaeda’s Revenge Mission Against Sunni Tribes
You won’t find this story anywhere in the MSM. But my military sources in Baghdad and elsewhere have confirmed to me that 1. beginning yesterday, Thursday, July 28th, two U.S. battalions began moving into Al Anbar to hunt Al Qaeda members smuggled out of Baghdad through Fallujah and Ramadi, and 2. that Al Qaeda has launched not so much a military campaign to retake Al Anbar, but a revenge campaign against its Sunni denizens, and most specifically its denizens’ Sheiks, who routed them out of the province and into a few mixed Sunni/Shiite areas in and around Baghdad. Al Qaeda harbors the illusion that by kiling the Sheiks, it will be able to subjugate the entire Sunni population of the huge province, and govern it as a separte Al Qaeda Sharia state. This is a fool’s game. Al Qaeda doesn’t have the numbers to pull it off, and the only reason it thrived in Al Anbar in the first placeis because the locals gave them cover from the hunting U.S. forces, as well as other vital forms of support. But as often happens when one lacks many other options, Al Qaeda is throwing out logic and merely acting in revenge, and acting to chase an impossible dream. So far, a few more Sunni sheiks have been murdered since the hotel bombing. They will not last by making the Sunnis their enemies, because they ultimately lack the numbers and force to subjugate them. There will be bloodshed, but they can only lose.
Developing…
(Excerpt) Read more at patdollard.com ...
Still sticking to the Zarqawi playbook.
My turn to ping you!!!
Is this guy a good source? I’m thinking too if he is he may have harmed OPSEC too.
He tends to honor OPSEC and he tends to be reliable. This info is at least 3 days old.
I never worry about asking a stupid question on FR, and this one is really stupid: how large is a battalion?
yesterday, Thursday, July 28th
You are mistaken. Not only has he gravely harmed OPSEC by disclosing an operation nearly a month before it was going to occur, he has even revealed the existence of time machines. :O
Not a stupid question at all.
In the old days (’80s lol) a grunt btn (USMC) was 3 infantry companies with 1 HQ company and 1 weapons company.
An infantry company was 3 rifle platoons and one weapons platoon.
A platoon was 3 squads of 13 men each (weapons platoons may have differed in number) The weapons platoon for the grunt company was made up of general purpose machine gun sections, light (60mm) mortar sections and anti-tank/demolitions assault sections. The AT section used LAAWS rockets and demolitions.
Weapons company was 1 platoon of 81mm mortars and 1 platoon of Dragon wire-guided, anti-tank missiles.
Iirc, the usual roster was somewhere around 500 to 560 men.
I have no clue how the US Army did it and no clue how it’s done today.
Thanks!
LOL! It is a typo. He wrote it on June 29th and was referring to June 28th. It is now July 1st there.
Many thanks for the helpful info.
Also, his contacts tend to be in the PAO
It the Army it depends a lot of the type of battalion it is. Here is a very general guideline from About.com:
Squad - 9 to 10 soldiers. Typically commanded by a sergeant or staff sergeant, a squad or section is the smallest element in the Army structure, and its size is dependent on its function.
Platoon - 16 to 44 soldiers. A platoon is led by a lieutenant with an NCO as second in command, and consists of two to four squads or sections.
Company - 62 to 190 soldiers. Three to five platoons form a company, which is commanded by a captain with a first sergeant as the commander’s principle NCO assistant. An artillery unit of equivalent size is called a battery, and a comparable armored or air cavalry unit is called a troop.
Battalion - 300 to 1,000 soldiers. Four to six companies make up a battalion, which is normally commanded by a lieutenant colonel with a command sergeant major as principle NCO assistant. A battalion is capable of independent operations of limited duration and scope. An armored or air cavalry unit of equivalent size is called a squadron.
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/army/l/blchancommand.htm
Thanks for the very helpful analysis. So, two battalions could be from 600 to 2000 soldiers. That helps me understand this article.
The key sentance is: “A battalion is capable of independent operations of limited duration and scope”
A general can send a battalion off on a mission like this to protect a number of Shieks in an area as large as al-Anbar.
... a battalion of about 700 soldiers and nearly 100 Stryker vehicles
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grabbed that in a search,,,should be close to that...X 2...
So, it’s not just numbers; it’s the capability of the unit (if “unit” is the right word) to perform whatever the operation is? On another note, it’s good to hear more and more reports of local leaders like these sheiks cooperating with us rather than watching from the sidelines or engaged actively against us.
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