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Combat Hunter
By Lt Col P
Good article in USAToday about the Combat Hunter program, bringing Marines together with big game hunters and urban cops to teach them how to recognize signs in the environment that show where the bad guys have trod.
Faced with an alarming increase in sniper attacks in Iraq, Marine commanders in late 2006 began looking for ways to turn the tables on an elusive enemy. Among the experts they consulted: a renowned African big game hunter and a former big city cop.The result is the combat hunter program, an experiment in training Marines to fight insurgents by making the Marines as wily as the enemy they face. The training combines outdoor skills culled from hunting and tracking with the street smarts developed by police and Marines who grew up in cities.
"The motto we … try to instill in these guys is Marines are always the hunter, never the hunted," says Ivan Carter, the safari guide and hunter — born Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe — who helped the Marines develop the program.
A couple of interesting names pop up in there. Ivan Carter, seen on Tracks Across Africa with Craig Boddington (Col, USMCR ret.); and Patrick Lang, former head of DOD HumInt. Lang, unless I'm very much mistaken, is a member of the VMI Class of '62. But I digress. The program has had some success:
Lt. Patrick Zuber, whose platoon was the first unit to get combat hunter training in a pilot program last year, said the training made Marines better able to sniff out trouble before it happened.The combat hunter Marines were able to spot patterns on streets that had formerly only appeared noisy, chaotic and strange. In one instance, Zuber's Marines were manning a series of checkpoints outside Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad. They received reports of a man illegally charging residents to enter the city, so the Marines carefully watched the throngs of cars and pedestrians that appeared every day. They noticed a man who moved among the crowds and regularly talked to people trying to enter the city.
After the man was detained, Marines discovered he was carrying a list of people who he had been charging and the amounts they owed. Marines determined he was working for the Iraqi police.
Let me toss this out. I see shades of the much feared and hated-- but very effective-- former South West Africa Police Counter-Insurgency Unit, Koevoet, in the sense of trying to deveolp a capability to identify an enemy force by its passing, then ruthlessly follow it up by foot, vehicle and aircraft. Anyone else see that, or am I way off base?
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Comments
Bronze-- I see your point. How about "Crowbar?" ;-)
P
It reminded me more of the tactical successes the Rhodesians had in tracking insurgents during the bush war. They lost that one politically, but they were very effective at finding and killing the enemy.
Slab-- Good point. I thought so too. The old Rhodesian Selous Scouts/Fireforce synergy comes to mind quickly. I'm not sure that the coalition has employed "pseudo-gangs" a la Kenya and Rhodesia to much extent, and if they have it's held tight. I've always thought that Fireforce ops were very MAGTF-like in several ways. Probably worth a historical post, eh?
yup, Lang is a VMI man.
Gentlemen,
I am VMI 89' and I am the Mobile Training Company Commandin Officer. I oversee the Combat Hunter Program on the East Coast. MTC is part of SOI-East, Advanced Infantry Training Battalion.
Combat Hunter is a joint venture between civilians and Marines. It is a "three legged stool" (ever heard that before?)consisting of Observation, Combat Profiling, and Combat Tracking.
The comments on the Selous Scouts is appropriate. David Scott Donelan is the senior civilian SME that the MC hired to help develop our tracking. David was a Selous Scout. His information combined with our sniper doctrine is where we get our tracking.
Observation is all out of our R&S doctrine and includes teaching Marines how to use their equipment and what to look for. i.e. Observation Theory. Ivan is really not involved any longer, he was the original civilian SME hired to help out.
Combat Profiling was develped by a gentleman name Greg Williams and it is essentially behavioral profiling and works in any culture.
This program has had nothing but fantastic results and plays into the MC's wishes to create a better Marine. This teaches a lot of cognitive skills and I equate it to sophmore level education for our young Marines. It will create more situationally aware Marines capable of thinking beyond "I'm up, they see me, I'm down". In my opinion, the total force will benefit not only in immediate combat results, but also the second and third order effects of having a Marine who is now being educated in his art will have long term implications as that Marine advances. We are enhancing critical thinking skills as well.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this program.
Funny. This hunter mindset approach was strongly suggested in 2006, in the book, "Edicts of Ares" Thirteen Absolute Rules of Warfare. The book sold well in the Washington DC area, and I note that similarly, the Army revised its FM to reflect some of the principles in this book.
I am in the Corps now and once was at SOI as an instructor. I went through a two week crash course on combat profiling which Greg Williams taught himself. In two weeks I never knew that I could learn so much. I still use this skill today and try to improve myself on it daily. Not only does it help in combat it also helps over all in the civilian part and all. I would give anything to go through another course of this sort.
It was a very nice idea! Just wanna say thank you for the information you have shared. Just continue writing this kind of post. I will be your loyal reader. Thanks again.
It was a very nice idea! Just wanna say thank you for the information you have shared. Just continue writing this kind of post. I will be your loyal reader. Thanks again.
Great post! Hope to be better. Better means more features.
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This sounds like a great program, but they really should change the name of it. It sounds way too much like the many stupid "Combat XXXXXX" programs that idiots in the AF come up with.