water, water everywhere: impassable barrier or infiltration route?

8/8/2019 WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE: Impassable Barrier or Infiltration Route?

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE: Impassable Barrier or Infiltration

Route

Surmounting water barriers has been an infiltration staplethroughout military history when it comes to delivering a surpriseattack to the enemy from an unexpected and/or undefended direction.

This was but one of the reasons that the Japanese were able tohopscotch down the Malay Peninsula during WWII to defeat asuperior British and Commonwealth force. Only a narrow strip of landalong one coast was accessible at all; the mountainous interior really

was impenetrable jungle. Fine new surfaced roads the British hadbuilt for the rubber plantations provided a route right down the maininvasion route. The British-commanded forces would makeroadblocks and defenses at likely choke points, their flanks, theythought, protected by impenetrable jungle and swamps that nomodern, mechanized European army could have maneuveredthrough. Their flanks were always turned, and another withdrawal
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necessary, during which infiltrators would make their own roadblocksand ambushes.

Allied Intelligence, especially after the campaigns in Malaya andBurma, amassed considerable information on the Japanese use ofinfiltration tactics, especially in conjunction with waterways of varioustypes.

Regardless of whether these frontal attacks were made, theJapanese nearly always moved patrols around the flanks of ourforces, and, in many instances, patrols crept through gaps in ourlines to reach the rear. The patrols usually were small, numberingfrom two to a few dozen men. They were lightly dressed, andgenerally were armed with light machine guns and grenades. Each of

the men carried enough compact food to last for several days. Bycollecting food from the countryside, they often had enough to lastmuch longer. These men had been trained and hardened towithstand many discomforts. All, or nearly all, were expert swimmersand handlers of small boats. They had been instructed to look uponwoods and water as things to assist them--not as obstacles

In their infiltration tactics, the Japanese moved fast at certain timesand very slowly at others. They stood in rice-field ditches for hours,up to their necks in water, waiting for targets to appear. They lay

hidden in underbrush for long periods waiting for chances to advancewithout being seen

By Water Craft

The Japanese look on water as a highway, not as an obstacle. Inboth Malaya and Burma, the Japanese employed small specially-designed river boats and small confiscated civilian boats to infiltrate

patrols to the flanks and rear of defending forces. The patrols,sometimes composed of large numbers of troops, generally moved atnight. When they moved in daylight, air protection was afforded them.Such movements were possible very often because of the largenumber of rivers and inlets in Malaya, particularly along the westcoast. A succession of infiltrations by boats down the west coastaided greatly in forcing several British withdrawals. The boats usuallyhid in numerous well-covered inlets by day and traveled close to the


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coast line at night until reaching their destination. In some cases theJapanese used rafts made of bamboo poles.

Not even ice-cold swift-running rivers proved to be an impassablebarrier. Against the United Nations forces in the Korean War, whenthey depended upon such rivers to anchor their lines or provide afront-line defensive barrier, the Commies found a way to surmountthe rivers. At times, both North Korean and ChiCom soldiers strippednaked, with their cloths held over their heads, and waded or swamsuch icy barriers. Light infantry weapons and equipment andindividual gear were ferried across on floating logs. Once on the farshore, they quickly donned their warm, quilted winter clothing andwent to work. Working with minimal materials, their engineersnonetheless built temporary bridges capable of supporting infantry,

oxcarts and pack animals, and even light vehicles.

While the Viet Cong were also known for the use of sampans andsmall waterways throughout the Mekong Delta, Marine Intelligencenoted also their simple but ingenious river-crossing techniques.

the Viet Cong, in heavily patrolled areas, do not always use boatsas a means of crossing rivers. In areas where rivers are rather wide,the Viet Cong will tie or strap their weapons across their backs,inflate an easily obtainable plastic bag and float slowly across with

only their heads showing. To mark the point where the individual is toland, the Viet Cong have used the technique of placing a simplebicycle taillight reflector mounted on a bamboo stick at the desiredlanding point. On moonlit nights, the reflector provides adequate lightfor navigation purposes. Tinfoil has also been used as a means of

providing an unattended navigation light.

Colonel David Hackworth noted this about the VCs ability to exfiltrateas well as infiltrate: When the attempt is made to seal in the enemytroops, one small opening left in the chain of force, such as a ditch,the palm grown slope of a canal bank, or a drainage pipe too smallfor an American to venture, will be more than enough to suit their

purpose. They will somehow find it; there is nothing that they dobetter by day or night. It is as if they have a sixth sense for finding theway out and for taking it soundlessly. They are never encircled solong as one hole remains.


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Whoa! Smells like Politics down here!

Culverts, storm drains, drainage pipes, irrigation tunnels andespecially sewers have provided hidden routes into and out of a widevariety of places, even those considered impregnable. King Richardthe Lionhearted built his impregnable castle, Chateau Gaillard, in1189. The castle fell, in part, because of a single French peasant

soldier nicknamed Bogis, found an unguarded sewage chute. It was30 feet long and just barely big enough for a man to fit through and,of course, full of raw sewage. Under cover of darkness, Bogis and asmall team of soldiers penetrated the castle via this route, settingfires and causing a panic amongst the defending English, whoretreated to the castle keep.

When a handful of Jewish resistance fighters took up guerilla warfareagainst the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto, the sewer system was notonly their last refuge but also provided routes for them to move freelyunder the very noses of the Germans. Troops, tanks, and artillery allproved ineffective against the guerillas. Only the Medieval expedientof completely and totally flooding all the sewers full of water endedresistance.
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In August of 1942, a team of German and Finnish troops used theseemingly endless and bottomless Finnish lake and muskeg countryto penetrate 125 miles behind Russian lines to blow up bridges on theSoviet Murmansk-Leningrad railroad, the Soviets vital main supplyline. They used boats, outboard motors, and paddles to navigaterivers, lakes, streams, swamps and overland portages from one bodyof water to the next to penetrate deeply and silently. A climacticnighttime raid from the rivers destroyed all but one of the targetedbridges.

On the other side of the Eastern Front coin, Soviet partisans andencircled troops made great use of the vast swamps of the PripetMarshes and the wet, boggy forests of the region. From these places,they could infiltrate German rear areas to conduct raids, plant mines

and commit sabotage. Tanks could not operate where they did, aerialspotting was difficult due to the forest canopy, and in many casesartillery made little impression, the muck swallowing the shells andmuffling them

The Russians were also fond of river infiltration.

During the night of 21-22 August [1941], three men, residents ofSvidovok and Dakhnovka, swam across the Dnepr with the aid offascine-type rafts made of reeds and twigs, and reached the Russian

regimental command post. They brought information about Germantroop dispositions, including the assumed location of command postsand heavy weapons.

Upon receipt of this information the Russian regimental commanderdecided to send reconnaissance patrols across the river in an effortto gain more details. As an initial step, the covering forces on thethree islands were reinforced. From his reserve battalion theregimental commander then selected 40 men who appeared to bebest suited for the task of gathering information behind enemy lines.Two reconnaissance detachments, each composed of 1 officer, 3noncommissioned officers, and 16 men, were organized. Each manwas armed with a sub-machinegun and three hand grenades, andeach wore a light-weight fatigue uniform and straw shoes. The menranged in age from 16 to 30 and were all excellent swimmers.


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Standing by on the east bank of the river were eight flat-bottomedboats to carry the patrols to the hostile shore by way of the islands.Each boat was manned by two native fishermen who alternately

propelled and steered by means of a scull oar, taking full advantageof the current.

Some Spetsnazmethods of infiltrating by water.

Although this initial combat reconnaissance failed, it opened the wayfor further scouts and infiltrations that were eventually successful.

Muskeg, marsh and swamp all often have muck and silt in which novehicle can operate. Likewise, tidal flats and low rivers expose hard-to-navigate deep mud conditions. In the Boundary Waters of northern

Minnesota, this is known colloquially as loon shit. Even men on footcan hardly move in it, sinking in to the knees or even the waist withevery step, losing boots, floundering, and becoming quicklyexhausted.

Russian SpetsnazSpecial Forces, below, developed a method usingsnowshoe-like devices and walking sticks equipped with wide basketsto greatly distribute their weight and enable them to move acrosssuch terrain where no infiltration would be thought possible.
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When even loon shit can be crossed, no place is safe.

An NVA sapper, sappers being among the elite of those forces,described some of the training they went through to move silently inmud and water.

Wading through mud, we were taught to walk by lowering our toes

first, then the rest of the foot. Picking our feet up, we would movethem around gently, then slowly pull the heels to avoid makingnoises. If you just pulled them up, without first moving then around,youd make sounds. The same thing would happen if you didnt putyour toes down first. We used the same methods for walking throughwater.

In 1939, the Soviets also began developing the underwater bridge asa means of infiltrating larger units without revealing the structure toaerial observation and thus interdiction. This remained a standard

tactic through the end of the Cold War. The VC and NVA were tomake use of this same subterfuge decades later in Vietnam.

Noteworthy, too, was their camouflage of river crossings by theconstruction of underwater bridges. For this purpose they used asubmersible underwater bridging gear, which could be submerged orraised by flooding or pumping out the compartments. The deck of the
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bridge was usually about 1 foot below water level, and was thusshielded from aerial observation.

The last thing one usually associates with the Iran-Iraq border iswater infiltration but actually, in addition to the desert, there was avast series of marshes. When the surviving Iranian militia-type forcesfinally got tired of losing thousands of men in futile screaming banzai-type frontal attacks over open ground against well-equipped and dug-in modern Iraqi armored forces, they retreated to the marshes. Afterscratching their turbans a bit, they decided maybe another tacticbesides frontal assaults over open desert might be in order. In themarshes, the poorly-equipped militia could act in a capacitysomewhere between light infantry and guerillas. Here, they held theirown against their heavily armed and technologically advanced

enemy.

THIS is IRAN?!?!

Endless seas of standing water and connecting waterways and tall,

dense expanses of reeds provided excellent cover and concealmentfor the Iranians, who learned to move in small patrols on foot and innative-built and small motor-powered boats. The marshes wereimpenetrable to Iraqi armor and mechanized forces, and their artilleryshells and bombs disappeared into the bottomless muck with little orno damage.
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Iran used the lessons learned in this area to launch one of the mostsuccessful attacks of the war farther south. While launching adiversionary attack north of Basra, Iran launched a commando raidusing Basij frogmen, boats and pontoon bridges to cross the Shatt Al

Arab and take the Al Faw peninsula. Their attack took advantage ofdarkness and rain and totally surprised the Iraqi defenders, many ofwhom fled their posts. The Iranians quickly established a bridge headand reinforced the peninsula. They dispersed their defenses and dugin quickly. They made all troop and supply movements at night to

prevent the Iraqis from acquiring artillery targets. This attack providedone of the greatest demonstrations of the Iranians potential in lightinfantry attacks in difficult terrain.

Afghanistan is another place not often thought of when it comeswater infiltration and exfiltration, but it has happened.In May 2005,Taliban insurgents, rather than disappear into the mountains, put upfierce, near suicidal fighting defense in and around the village ofBulac Kalay. It turned out that the terrorists sacrificed themselves sothat their high-ranking leadership could escape by floating down thesnow-melt swollen Arghandab River.

The Green Zones of Afghanistan are kept green and cultivated by aseries of underground irrigation canals and tunnels. The Mujahideen

and now the Taliban have used these to move freely undetected. Inone case in 2005, a small Taliban force escaped from Americanforces by fleeing up an irrigation tunnel that brought snow-melt waterdown from the mountains. Once out, they flooded the tunnel to veryeffectively deter any pursuit.

The Mujahideen used an unusual water-borne method to attack anoutpost: Abdul Wali, a Mujahideen from Kandahar, was known forhis creative bomb-making. Once in 1986, he sent a floating bombdown the Nosh-e Jan creek (which runs in the western suburbs ofKandahar city from northeast to southwest) to destroy a governmentoutpost at a hotel'. Abdul Wali strapped a 250 kilogram bomb ontosome truck tire inner tubes. He measured the distance from theoutpost to his release point upstream where he would launch hisfloating bomb. The bomb was hooked to a wire whose length was thelength from launch point to outpost. Once the floating bomb stretched


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out the full length of the wire, it was exactly under the outpost. AbdulWali remotely-detonated the bomb and destroyed the outpost.

This is not to say that only eastern forces make use of this principle.

British General James Wolfe, during the French & Indian War, hadunsuccessfully shelled and attacked the French fortress at Quebecfor several weeks. Finally, he landed troops up the river from Quebec,coming ashore in the darkness of night and ascending a little knowngoat trail up the cliffs and bluffs of the riverside. From luck as muchas skill, the move succeeded and led to the climactic battle of thePlains of Abraham, the capture of Quebec, and the eventual Frenchdefeat.

Very important dead white guy American publik skools don'tteach about anymore.

George Washington, of course, used small, fragile wooden boats tocross through the ice cakes of the Delaware River to attack anddefeat the Hessians at Trenton on Christmas night 1776. Before that,

an amphibious exfiltartion saved Washingtons fledgling AmericanArmy when it was being surrounded and trapped with its back to thewater by the British Army after the Battle of Brooklyn. Marbleheadboatmen, using small wooden boats, muffled oars, and a foggy nightsuccessfully evacuated the American forces from right under thenoses of the British.
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Special operations during World War Two from the BritishCommandos provided some of the first offensive actions against thethen-victorious German juggernaut. Courtesy of the Royal Navy, thecommandos landed on the coasts of Norway and France to conductreconnaissance and raids on important targets. In the Pacific, the USMarine Raiders paddled silently ashore in rubber boats to infiltrateJapanese-held islands, clandestinely launched from USN submarineswhich had already infiltrated Japanese naval and air defenses.

The damage done was less a victory than the morale andpropaganda value to American and Commonwealth citizens in thattheir military forces were striking back and taking the offensiveagainst enemies that had formerly seemed unstoppable.

The small patrol boats of the Brown Water Navy in Vietnam utilizedthe myriad waterways of the Delta to appear wherever they wishedwith considerable mobile firepower. From here the modern NavySEALs were born, and since then they have become the premiereSpecial Forces to turn infiltration by water into an art. They can eveninfiltrate and take deep water drilling rigs in the open oceanundetected.

U.S. Navy SEALs infiltrating stealthily ashore somewhere inVietnam. Note the bare feet and non-standard (i.e., ones that

function in a harsh battlefield environment) weaponry.
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Likewise, Marine Force Recon and Rangers are no strangers torubber boats and water infiltration. The Sealous Scouts in Rhodesiasometimes even used collapsible klepper kayaks to infiltrate Africarivers, an extremely dangerous endeavor in itself what with theHippopotamus penchant for attacking and sinking small watercraft.The jolly-looking hippo actually kills more people in Africa than dolions and crocodiles and snakes, oh my.

Small boats can also find themselves able to come and go virtually atwill in many places around the worldthe deltas of mighty rivers,fjords, mangrove swamps, vast northern lake country waterways, thechannels among the islands along the coast of British Columbia,Alaska, etc.

Many such waterways, especially at certain times of the year, comeaccompanied by other forms of moisturerain, fog, snow, mistknown as infantry sunshine. In at least one publicized case, a CoastGuard helicopter equipped with FLIR lost a drug-runners small boaton the open ocean in what was termed an ocean haze.

So water doesnt always have to be a barrier to overcome orcircumvent. To the underdog or small force, it can instead become anasset rather than a liability, and a route to what cannot otherwise beaccessed. It is not necessarily easy, but can be easier than the other

options.

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water, water everywhere: impassable barrier or infiltration route?

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