Para Officer stirring it for the Blue Jobs [RAF]
Emails from Helmand: Major Jamie Loden, OC A Coy 3 PARA.
(Edited for circulation.)
Relayed to BLESMA - interesting reading.
This has been a fairly intense time. I was in theatre for 4 days
before deploying into a fire base with the company. So far I have
lost one man killed and five wounded. Cpl Bryan Budd as no doubt you
have read was an outstanding JNCO, and he will be sorely missed.
I have a Coy Gp here although we are lacking manpower. All of our
companies now only have 2 pls on the ground. Desperately in need of
more helicopters and personally 2 battle groups not 1. My Coy Gp
includes .50 cal and GPMG SF det, Javelin det, HCR troop, Engr
troop, mor section, and fire support team including FAC. I have 105
guns in support from another location.
Attacks consist of regular rocket, mortar, RPG and small arms on the
fire base, plus fairly heavy fire fights out on the ground. The Toms
are getting to grips with their core business of mouse hole charges,
barmines and grenades for buildings, and all direct fire weapons for
the assault.
The UGL and AT-4 are excellent suppression weapons into buildings
but no substitute for a JDAM. From my point of view controlling and
directing air, arty and mors is the best way to influence the
battle. The RAF have been utterly utterly useless. Twice I have had
Harriers in support when c/s on the ground have been in heavy
contact, on one occasion trying to break clean. A female harrier
pilot "couldn't identify the target", fired 2 phosphorous rockets
that just missed our own compound so that we thought they were
incoming RPGs, and then strafed our perimeter missing the enemy by
200 metres. In contrast USAF have been fantastic, and I would take
an A-10 over Eurofighter any day. To date the battle group have
fired over 300,000 rounds of natures up to and including .50 cal.
Not sure how much coverage it is getting back there, but at least
Bryan Budd has been recognised at least for the moment. I hope to
get him more fitting recognition in the longer term.
The press report in the Telegraph actually blended 2 contacts
together. On July 27 we initiatied a contact with enemy pre-seen.
Unfortunately the pre-seen were only 1 of the 3 firing points and 2
of his section were quickly wounded. He pushed forward to drive the
enemy back, and personally dispatched some enemy taking cover "in
the public [edited by admin]" with a couple of grenades and some rifle fire.
I have a couple of soldiers who I have concerns about after some
heavy contact on Aug 17 and Aug 20. Even now with our own artillery
firing they look very frightened and slow to react. There is a fine
line between giving them time to accept what has happened and
adjust, and gripping them hard and forcing them to focus.
One thing that is not working at all is the R and R plot. Because
helicopter hours are so short, I lose people a few days before they
are due their 2 weeks, and they don't come back until a few days
after they have got back either. This means that I lose people for 3
weeks at a time. Currently 1 Pl have both their pl comd and pl sgt
on leave, one just gone, one coming back, they have had a sect comd
killed, another wounded, and now have 2 x Cpls as Pl Comd and Pl
Sgt - far from ideal. R & R fine for Kosovo or NI but not working
here with our state of manning.
2nd Email
Some info on 20 Aug as the Daily Telegraph is treating the contacts
of 27 July and 20 Aug as 1. I will try and explain, bear in mind my
2 pls are approx 20 in strength, and there are 5 sangars and a
second building to man to keep the base secure. On 20 Aug the
platoon were advancing forward with 2 sections forward to provide
depth and cover to the platoon HQ and 3rd section who were proving a
new route through some walls with barmines. Cpl Budd's section was
right, and off to the left was another section and a .50 cal WMIK.
Budd saw the enemy 25 metres in front behind a bush line, and using
hand signals organised his section to attack. As he went forward the
landrover on the left was ambushed, despite this he led his section
forward with heavy fire personally accounting for at least 2 enemy.
Sadly he and 3 of his section were hit although one was only in the
body armour. As the section pulled back in the face of heavy fire,
no-one saw Budd was down. The other 2 casualties were pulled back,
and shortly afterwards Budd was declared MIA. The pl comd and 3rd
section had made their way forward, and tried to advance forward to
find Budd but they were driven back under heavy fire. By this time I
had launched the initial QRF of 1 section to secure the casualty
collection point, and the CSM drove forward on a quad bike with
trailer and stretcher to begin the casualty recovery. The pl comd
moved around and tried with another section to no avail sustaining a
third casualty (also a section commander) in the process, and the
platoon radio op took a round in the chest but was saved by the body
armour. The platoon commander received some shrapnel in his backside
but continued. The platoon began to consolidate on a compound as the
enemy were now trying to surround them as indicated by their comms.
The CSM made another trip out and back on the Quad bike to collect
the third casualty, this time coming under fire himself but
continuing nonetheless. I began assembling more forces to push out
to bolster the position on the ground. I sent forward a section of
Engineers with the 2 platoon commander to effectively control the
rear. The 2 Pl comd tried to push round the flank towards Budd was
engaged by enemy across the river and pinned down. I now created 2
more sections, one led by a Cpl from the Snipers with an Enginner
Staff Sergeant as the 2IC and including the RMP SIB sergeant and
corporal originally brought in to investigate L/Cpl Tansey's
unfortunate death (HCR head crushed by vehicle). The second section
was 8 soldiers from the Household Cavalry Troop led by their Troop
Commander. These were pushed forward to the 2 platoon commander. 1
Platoon now consisted of 4 sections and 2 Platoon of 3 sections, 80
people on the ground notionally under my control but in reality
under command of 1 Pl. I remained on our fire support building
coordinating air support, artillery and mortars with the fire
support team. We had a second WMIK to the east in the town with a
fire team protecting it to observe likely enemy routes, and by now
they could see the Taliban were rushing weapons out of a mosque
hidden in depth. We began to engage them with mortars. Once more the
RAF HArriers overhead could not identify a target, but would have
been too close anyway for bombs. Nonetheless they fired a rocket
that missed by about 700 metres. Thankfully by this stage 2 Apaches
arrived, and I cut them to 1 Pl Comd who was able to direct their
fire accurately onto the enemy positions. Back at battalion the Ops
Company was loaded on Chinnooks and was within a whisker of
launching with Bn Tac, 30 mins flight time. I told them to wait as I
thought the Apaches would relieve the pressure.
At about the same time the enemy engaged us with mortars, and were
clearly getting the base plate bedded in as their rounds began to
creep closer. With the Apache cover overhead and keeping the enemy
pinned down, 1 Pl Comd led the platoon forward to the original
contact point where they found Budd. It was around an hour since he
had been hit, and initially had no pulse. He was given CPR and moved
as quickly as possible. The CSM raced out on the Quad bike and
retrieved him, but the doctor was unable to save him.
Once Budd was found and the AH had got the enemy to back off, I
moved the AH east to clear the gun-target line to enable us to
conduct counter-mortar fire. Thankfully by this stage the Harriers
were gone, and I think we had some other aircraft on station but I
cannot now honestly remember. The 2 platoons were trickling towards
us now clearly exhausted, and if there ever needed to be a
justification for the 2 miler this was it. Those of us on the fire
support tower were shouting at them to keep running and spread out
because of the enemy mortar fire. They were all exhausted and
scared, but I think the physicality of it was a real eye opener for
the HCR and RMP, perhaps less so for the Engineers. The Ops Company
never launched although it would have done had AH not come on when
it did. Alternatively A-10s would have done the job.
The contact on 20 Aug proves once again the old lesson, that all
arms and services must be fit and capable of basic weapon skills and
fieldcraft. There were many people on that day who will go
unrecognised, but simply volunteered immediately to go out as part
of the reinforcements regardless of rank or experience.
3rd Email
Ref emotion there has been plenty of tears which as you know is all
rather humbling. I have followed the same line as far as keeping
them together, and injecting humour where possible.
As for facts I have been in the field since July 27th and have only
had 3 days with no contact so fairly constant. As far as AH is
concerned the ground truth is this. On some occassions they have
been excellent bringing in fire as little as 25 metres from friendly
pax, on others they have been unable to identify targets even though
people are receiving incoming on the ground. As ever they are fairly
egotistical people, and are heard to dismiss contacts in the JOC as
insignificant on the basis that there were no casualties on the
ground. Often the view is different from 1,500 feet to on the
ground. However the bottom line is that there are not enough of
them, and our inability to put in Farps means that transit time
limits their effectiveness. What is infuriating is their refusal to
listen to the J2 picture from the ground commander in advance of
operations, briefing that they will be over the target 2 mins ahead
of the chinooks and then turning up 15 mins early and giving the en
all the advanced warning they needed. Thermal weapon sights on .50
cal and new hand held TI sight called Viper very effective as next
to no ambient light with intermittent electricity. With no moon it
is black as a witch's tit and NVGs are not much good.
A platoon fighting patrol was being dicked by 2 individuals. As they
were being detained, pl comd saw 7 enemy pax moving into position.
Seconds later contact was initiated and in the ensuing firefight
both prisoners were killed. The pl comd called in fire mission and
launched hasty pl attack onto compound. Enemy were forced to
retreat, and the pl consolidated its position. En reinforcements
moving in, so the pl comd decided to extract.
Enter female harrier pilot. As platoon looked to break clean, threw
blue smoke to identify his position which merely served as a beacon
to the Talibs. Harrier coudln't identify and fired rockets that just
missed Coy HQ compound. Pl Comd decided to continue to move, but as
the enemy closed up he put in a snap ambush and slowed them up with
a heavy rate of fire. HCR had 1 x CVR(T) and 1 x Spartan providing
support in depth that were trying to move into fire position however
Spartan lost track and was disabled. THe pl continued to extract
with enemy pursuing, once they broke out of agricultural land into
the wadi and in view, 2 x WMIK and the 1 x CVR(T) were able to
suppress as well as the Coy HQ compound were able to suppress.
Harrier now strafed the outside of the compound again missing the
enemy by 300 metres. Eventually 1st Harrier dropped 1 x bomb on
target, second one missed by 300 metres and was a blind. HCR had to
extract pax and sensitive eqpt from the Spartan and abandon it as
enemy tried to flank around it. By now arty and mortars coming down
in abundance. Thankfully no casualties, lots of ammo expended
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Yes indeed and i was in the army for 4 years, could not agree more. OK im 36 now and only a couple of years ago i tried to rejoin my old battallion, guess what they said im too old, now surely they should welcome an experienced soldier back as they are so undermanned, and im still perfectly capable of doing a BFT and an ICFT, in boots too not like the bloody trainers they use nowadays 