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Home » Black Ops & Intel » LET, A Smarter Breed of Terrorist: Lashkar-e-Taiba – Part 1

LET, A Smarter Breed of Terrorist: Lashkar-e-Taiba – Part 1

by Escape the Wolf · May 1, 2012 · Posted In: Black Ops & Intel
lashkar-e-taiba-let-smarter-breed-terrorist
Lashkar-e-Taiba or LeT (because its a stupid set of words to try and pronounce) is actually a concerning terror group worth pushing out of the closet, yes, the closet. Most extreme Muslims are pedophiles, they like little boys more than woman.

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I think taking some time to identify who they are, where they operate, and the tactics utilized is a good start to their termination. After all, turning the media spotlight on them just might make them important enough to start killing.

Who is LeT?

LeT is labeled a terrorist organization by the west and India – especially India – and specifically Kashmir. LeT was stood up by the Pakistani Inner Services Intelligence (ISI) Agency to “liberate” Kashmir from India.

LeT has become a rabid dog with no master. ISI has lost control of the group so they keep funding, training, and supporting them because they’d rather have LeT as a friend vice a foe. The group wants to destroy the Indian Republic and kill all Jews and Hindus. They have decided that India, Israel, and of course, the United States, are enemies of Islam. They believe that violent jihad is all Muslims duty – blah blah blah… Terror groups really need to update their rhetoric.

LeT’s 8 Objectives

1. Ending Persecution against Muslims. (Here’s an idea: stop killing yourselves, other Muslims, and westerners – then and only then will the persecution end.)

2. Establish Islam as the dominant way of life in the world. (Here’s an old fact: Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion!)

3. Force Infidels to pay Jizya. (News Alert: We are already taxed heavily – most of which goes toward killing you terrorists – taxes paid!)

4. Fight for the weak and feeble against oppressors. (Here’s a question: Who exactly are you fighting for, and do they want you to represent them?)

5. Revenge for killed Muslims. (Another idea: Start your revenge series with suicide bombers – that will probably stump you for a bit…)

6. Punishing enemies for violating oaths and treaties. (blah blah blah blah – hypocrisy…)

7. Defend all Muslim states. (With what? Rocks?)

8. Recapture occupied Muslim territory. (I didn’t know dirt had a religion? Grow up!)

On a more serious note…

The Mumbai Attack

One of my good friends is an international tradecraft historian and expert – the best in the world. He opened my eyes to how lethal LeT had become.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Mumbai

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Mumbai

LeT was responsible for the Mumbai attacks that killed roughly 200 people and injured even more. What most don’t know is how methodical the attack really was, their use of technology, and the US connection to the entire operation. So let’s break the operation down nice and simple.

The Mumbai Attack, I hate to say it, was an incredibly well-executed operation.

Cross Border Infil: The LeT Kill Team infiltrated India from Pakistan utilizing a series of “at sea rendezvous” and transferring from dhow to dhow under the cover of darkness (very difficult to execute). To prevent compromise of the dhows used, the teams final act at sea was the pirating of a fishing vessel for the final leg of the journey.

They boarded the fishing vessel at night, killed everyone on board, transferred their equipment and combat rubber raiding craft (CRRC or Zodiac), and motored the pirated vessel just off the coast of Mumbai. The team transferred to the CRRC and under the cover of darkness executed a flawless OTB (over the beach) landing. Once on the beach, they changed into disguises, walked to the closest main road, and hailed taxi’s.

Not a bad start!

Tactical Integration of Deception: The use of disguises, improvised explosives, and the overall plan of attacked was laced with impressive and cunning shades of deception.

First, once they landed on the beaches of Mumbai, they dressed up in a “uniform” that was worn by a known Indian terror group. The Indian terror group wore blue shirt, khaki pants, and the real identifier – a red/orange wrist band. This level of dissociation from LeT was enough to confuse the media and investigators long after the attack.

Clandestine use of IED’s: Improvised explosives were implemented through the same taxi cabs that were hailed on the beach – turning each taxi cab into a “Trojan horse”, unwitting to the taxi drivers.

The taxis ended up exploding at the airport, at the same time, exactly one hour after the LeT kill team arrived in Mumbai. Each cab driver was asked one question that determined their fate – “Are you Muslim or Hindu?” Unfortunately for the drivers, they were all Hindu. Clandestinely from the backseat of the taxi cabs, the improvised explosives were placed under the drivers seat by the LeT terrorists.

I will continue to piece this together for you over the next couple of articles – but as usual, please provide your own input! More to follow!!

Be the Sheepdog,

Escape the Wolf

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iceviking
iceviking 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

reading this article and the valuable comments is like awesome.. a little bit too awesome... hope sofrep checks the ip origins of visitors.

FiercelyRight
FiercelyRight 5pts

@LauraWalkerKC @SOFREP Good article. Frontline had a decent piece on the Mumbai attack. Interesting was the puppetmaster in PK.

LauraWalkerKC
LauraWalkerKC 5pts

@FearsomeBuffalo @SOFREP here is a good profile of Lashkar e Taiba http://t.co/yJt6aHbL and analysis http://t.co/1uHbB9lX

FiercelyRight
FiercelyRight 5pts

@LauraWalkerKC @SOFREP Laura, Thank you for the additional info.

LauraWalkerKC
LauraWalkerKC 5pts

@FearsomeBuffalo @SOFREP my pleasure :)

LauraWalkerKC
LauraWalkerKC 5pts

@FearsomeBuffalo @SOFREP LeT is extremely dangerous and very, very smart about embedding into the culture and destroying from within.

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LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts

 @ArcticWarrior 

 

These days, to do something of similar magnitude don't think you have to be a ex-anything,

 

Hundreds of hours playing Modern Warfare, maybe a couple of hours doing live action airsoft, half an hour in a target range, plus websites, books and forums like this, would be plenty to get you off and running.

 

This was Colombine with just more firepower, commitment and motivation. The scary thing about this is that it can be replicated anywhere by anyone, no need for state sponsorship to do something like this. I've seen pimple ridden knuckleheads walk through malls in obvious formation they got from playing video games.

iceviking
iceviking 5pts

 @LCpl X thank you. intelligent comment and food for thought.

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @ArcticWarrior 

 

Yeah, man. Not trying to take away from the intel, logistics and planning that went in to the Mumbai operation, just saying ISI really didn't have to go thru all that. The planners went overboard, all that stuff they sent Headley Gilani for, and other costs could've easily been gathered via Google. Open source is cheap and effective.

 

As for high stress, indoctrinate them with a 72 virgins life after death worldview and they won't be stressed. Did you see that guy's reaction when he was shown his buddies' dead bodies? He actually thought at the point of martyrdom he'd just disappear straight to heaven.

 

Now for JSOC budget expanding, we all know when you expand a gov't bureau, you're only expanding the bureacracy. I say leave JSOC alone they are already getting way too much money, that goes for SOCOM too.

 

In a Mumbai type scenario it's not gonna be JSOC but local police that will carry the day.

 

But going back to budget expansions and local PD, an example, LAX police has a DHS subsidized budget for check points on roads leading to the terminal. It's a great overtime gig, easy as fuck. But sadly, easily as ineffective.

 

All the shady stuff going on on our airports, ports and railways are happening outside the public's view and probably more dangerous, because let's face it, if a Mumbai scenario happens only a few hundred will die, but a "Sum of all Fears" scenario and you got thousands and thousands. Why is that not the priority.

 

90% of Ramp Rats in LAX, those folks who work in the inner bowels moving cargo and luggage around are gangsters. That's how they funnel drugs. Same with ports and railways. I know in L.A. just south of downtown, in City of Commerce, the main railroad hub, from which cargo from LA and Longbeach ports fan out across the nation, the rails are divvied up by gangs--whatever cargo sits on a particular rail said gang has dibs on it.

 

Why we are not putting more personnel according to the threats posed is beyond me. 

 

But it's not budget and it's not JSOC, local PD, and in the case of rail roads their own security, that's who needs to be put in a microscope. Each of us should be wondering where that luggage that gets placed on a conveyor belt goes, is that place as safe as the egress/ingress roads of our airports?

 

Not a question of budgeting, but recognition of real threats and pushing our local security apparatus to follow suit. We shouldn't be happy with the bs dog and pony at the airport.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-oYZQxrEQg

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @LCpl X

 I get what your saying, I mean my kids have a grasp of light Infantry tactics from games so I see that angle. However these guys would have to have a level of physical and mental muscle memory. Waterborne ops and beach Infils you dont get from CoD, there had to be lots of practice, and practice takes money and good instruction and it seems to me from watching video that they had been used to working together in a high stress tempo. And from what Ive researched, multiple attacks at multiple locations occured, over 10 seperate attacks over 2 hours, multiple hotels, a movie theatre, a Jewish center. And that douche bag friend of our Govt, David Headley, aka Daood Sayed Gilani is right in the thick of it.  If these guys are our next vision then we need to expand the JSOC budget.

With Google Earth, a GPS, some video game basics I guess you have the operational foundations of groups like this. Them smoking some rock right before the attacks is a nice touch. The Indian newspapers have lots of good info.

Old PH2
Old PH2 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

I'll be reading through this the next couple of days:

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/letters-from-abbottabad-bin-ladin-sidelined

 

Curious to see what Osama was doing in Abbottabad.

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Old PH2 

 

Great find, man. Let us know if UBL wrote more love letters to his younger wife and no letters to the older one. Curious about the older wife's motivations and psychology.

 

I'm still trying to plow thru Jenkins' books. Origen Adamantius' apocatastasis and transmigration of souls is nuts, I never knew early Christians even thought of this. I know the Druze are into this. Curious if this has any connections to Buddhists, I know they sent out their own emissaries too OR via the Alexandria library.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocatastasis

Old PH2
Old PH2 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @LCpl X Yeah, the whole gamut of doctrine was up for grabs.  No trinity, no holy mother, even the idea of a church leadership separate from the layity was all just beginning to take root.  If you or I was to walk into a Christian church Prior to The council of Nicea, we might not recognize much of it at all.  Really makes you wonder what was lost.

Old PH2
Old PH2 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @LCpl X It's not that far off from a BBC crew that did that series on the Silk Road.  I'd love to do my part. 

 

Personally I've always been comforted by the absurd humor that we find in Religion.  There is a whole series of jokes about the mullah and his donkey that are very popular throughout the ME.  Kind of like our "There's a priest, a rabbi, and a baptist..." 

Title it "The last Laugh, a look at Christianity in the Orient from the First Century until today."  

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Old PH2  

 

I'm looking at the map of Nestorian Churches in the 1st Chapter, they had churches in Beijing, Xi'an, down to Patna, back up in Uzbekistan, Herat, Baluchistan and Pakistan.

 

And I'm reminded of Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain" in which he retraces the same journey a monk once took to document Byzantine Christendom.

 

I'm wondering if we here in SOFREP can fund Jack's hiatus or academic sabbatical and get him to do a similar journey. From Beijing, to Xi'an, up and around ending up in Kerala, India to check out St. Thomas' churches there.

Old PH2
Old PH2 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @LCpl X  The whole idea of servant leadership in a nutshell.  "I'm your slave" literally.  You just can't make this stuff up.  That's part of what I like about the story of Jonah.  He's sitting under that bottle gourd plant wishing he had some shade, and can't buy a clue.  Just Classic, oriental wisdom.

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @Old PH2 

 

Just that story in Acts of Thomas, of Jesus selling Thomas to an Indian merchant because Thomas didn't wanna go to India, who'd have known Jesus was a good practical joker. "You need a carpenter, see that guy right there, I'm selling him to you." That's better than any Punk'd episode. LOL!

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ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts

 @Matt2

 http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/02/time-line-for-a-terror-plot/?hpt=hp_c2

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts

 @Matt2

 I guess we should expect the evolution and adaptation. AQ was more sophisticated the the PLO. Where do freelancers fit in? This was a deliberate attack on India, a sworn enemy. I suspect a high level of cultural motivation. The are you Hindu or Muslim questioning shows how deep that hatred is, its cold and calculated. Think about it Matt these guys pulled off a professional military like infiltration and assault, complete with objectives and timelines, so whats scary is these were no amatuers. They had to have lots of practice and lots of state sponsored help. Makes AQ look thin doesnt it?

PatrickM
PatrickM 5pts

Arctic Warrior I do understand what you are saying ,,No way do we stack up against  US Special Ops,but I question did we learn? The city I work for has fallen in love with cameras thats what the $$ is spent on.I am EMS and we should be doing far more training then we do. For example another large city held a major DHS training event we received an invite but didn't bother to send anyone,i could not believe it,especially when I read the training scenarios.they fit us like a glove but we  stayed at home.Take today May 1st a significant date, yet  not a memo to be aware,to  maintain situational awareness.We  are in a react mode.so all i can do is try to keep my crews aware and alert. As for the PD in my city they are overwhelmed with street crime,so that becomes the focus of the media so that becomes the focus of PD..thank god for one thing we seem to have more PD who have military combat experience,hopefully they will evolve into leadership positions.

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts

 @PatrickM

 I think we learned on some aspects but as time goes by we are forgetting dont you think? Did anyone ask why you guys stayed home? Budget? Staffing? Politics? It usually falls into one of those categories right? Cameras, yeah us to. Its like UCAVs in the DOD.

To repel a raid like Mumbai you would need probably a Company sized element, who train and live to gether which is bigger then most Precincts. The reaction time to assemble could not possibly be there. In theatre you have QRFs and hot birds available. Maybe NYC, LA, CHI SWAT types could pull it off but thats about it.

 Mumbai is unique. Like the article said these guys were sophisticated and had some talent. They also had to have inside help and big financing. Thats why street level Intel all the way to NSA etc have to be right 100% of the time.

PatrickM
PatrickM 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

Tango 9, maybe half of police  here are what they call AR cars.We got on that bandwagon late.Also no functioning Tactical EMS..And a few years ago we did a DHS Training exercise and despite knowing parameters we still had issues.Like I said the OP force was made up of US Military Special Operation guys and they did a number on us.They ambushed EMS at ERs even grabbed a number  of EMS vehicles .Effectively took out an emergency room at major trauma center..Now i understand their Skill Set is way above ours but we did know what was coming..Still have difficulty using radios to talk between agencies Police to Fire and EMS..And we have a ton of soft targets.We tend to be reactive rather than proactive.Always wished that former Special operators would be fired to test are readiness some form of Red Cell.. We need it

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts

 @PatrickM

 Taking on Pro terrorists like the guys above is a specialized job that takes YEARS of real world training, that no PD will ever see. CAG/DEV guys are ridiculously good at it, but after 11 years off doing it for real we have forgotten just how "Special" those guys are.

The Pro LeT types are in the terror biz not in the fighting JSOC biz.

Its not fair to expect a PD to not get hammered in an FTX like you described. More importantly are lessons learned and deficiencies acknowledged.

Trango
Trango 5pts

 @ArcticWarrior You have a point in that it does take years of training to be able to confront a group like LeT and efficiently take them out. However, PatrickM bring up a couple of good points. First and foremost is communication. Communication from one agency to another can turn into a giant cluster-F*&% in a heartbeat and the event doesn't have to be anywhere near the level we saw in Mumbai. For some reason that has not improved since 9/11 and the D-Block initiative was JUST signed into law this year!!We also need to do away with the "we're just cops" mindset. LE trainers and instructors have been saying for years and years that an attack like this could conceivably happen on U.S. soil and even after 9/11, U.S. LE is no where near being prepared for it as they should be. LEOs in general are also extremely under trained when it comes to being able to administer life-saving first-aid, especially in a high-stress environment. This is slowly changing with more and more patrol officers carrying IFAKs and IPOKs but we're still WAY under the curve here. Yes, PDs are going to get beat-up in an FTX like this. There is no real way for them to "win". However, LE agencies should have the personnel and training to take the fight to and manage the threat much as possible in an event like this. Unfortunately thought budgets, bureaucracy, and sometimes just plain laziness get in the way. In the end, as PatrickM mentions, we just aren't ready....and I'm not sure if we ever will be to the level that is expected...

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts

 @Trango

 Couldnt argue with you, many valid points.

PatrickM
PatrickM 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

The bigest problem facing a US city would be how fast the first responders recognized  that it was coordinated attack. In the city i work police are undermanned.If they hit multiple hotels it would be hours before Feds could be here to help. not all of the Police in my city even have rifles. when we had a large scale drill a few years back even after being told what may occur,we still feel for it. granted the op force was  US Military Operations,but they gave us lots of problems 

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @PatrickM Training Training Training and then some Training, and when you're done, start Training.  I know it's a function of $$.  I'm not LE, but most of my more insane friends are.

 

Reach out to other departments, work with county and city guys, the FBI loves to train (because it makes them feel superior) so take advantage of it.

 

You know the drill, man.  You have to go get it.

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts

 @Tango9  @PatrickM

 In order to train now the shift is short one body and that training is not high on the priority list for most. We are the 3rd largest SO in the country with a huge budget and its hard to allocate for that when regular street issues need resources. We are tight with LA County SO and Clark Co SO, etc so info is shared, as well as bulletins from NYPD,CHI, LA FBI DHS. The info sharing is better and gets better everyday.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @ArcticWarrior  @PatrickM I have to admit I'm a training nazi.  Over the last 25 years I've watched training get kicked to the last page of budgets over and over, both when I was  in uniform and out.

 

I tend to lose my mind on the topic so I'll just say: training saves lives.  untraining kills people.

 

You telling me this makes me want to strip naked and run through the streets yelling phrases in Latin I don't even understand.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts

 @PatrickM I'm not going to ask what city, but didn't the 1997 bank robberies in N. Hollywood pretty much ensure every police officer had access to at least an M4, M14 or some variant?  The fact that it's 15 years later and that's not the case is troubling.

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Tango9  

 

Not necessarily, man. LAPD had M16 UPRs, but only averaged 3 per watch. I'd say Mumbai shooting changed it and allowed more cops to go thru UPR training.

 

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @ArcticWarrior 

 

I would go so far as to say our quality of non-rates should also be a source of pride.

 

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 3 Like

 @Tango9

 

Traffic cops go thru books of tickets per day, most regular patrol cops though weigh each others' worth on high grade felonies. If you got 'em from generated calls, doesn't carry a lot of weight. Officer generated arrests, now we're talking, high among these are those generated via consensual encounters, basically talking a susp into prison.

 

So base on that heirarchy of skill sets, a cop's worth is his Jedi mind trick skillz. 

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @Tango9  @LCpl X

 Absolutely the American NCO Corp is the best. Im personally thankful for a few over the years and even a couple of O's.

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Tango9  @LCpl X

 Yes and no, its not a cop out answer but as you know in the Military you have a different mindset. Policing and being your avg regular guy warfighter are totally different professions.

As for the solution IDK. Me I always thought if some Jihad Johnny caught me Im confident DEV may come get me, and I think they may think that way after so many Hellfires from the blue showed so many of them no virgins after all.

Really we may need the opinion of our Israeli friends here on SOFREP, they live these scenarios everyday.

So I will defer to the experts in said field, the Israeli's.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 3 Like

 @ArcticWarrior  @LCpl X I always told the wife that if I went LEO they'd fire me because I'd be back for a new ticket book 20 minutes after mount up.

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @Tango9  @LCpl X

 Its Ok to judge to a degree, its your tax dollars. But your average street cop has a crazy work load with strict ROE and a press who will jump all over them if they get it wrong. Me Im inside with all your bad people concentrated in one place and its not nearly like dealing with the street, those guys have a tough job so if they are a DB just try to understand and give them a break even when they are being a dick.

 

And people when a mission goes bad in the AO,  dont be so quick to want to hang the 3- 18 yr olds and their 23 yr old Sgt when bad things happen, we created them to do a job, put yourself in their shoes when you were 18, could you handle what they do?

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 3 Like

 @ArcticWarrior  @LCpl X I'm with you, brother.  If there's 1 good thing the last 12 years have done it's create a generation of Men.  not men.  Men.  We needed that boost.

 

I'd put our nation up against any in history.  Give them spears, shovels, swords, M4's or goddam laser rifles and we will beat your ass 29 ways to Sunday.

 

Some people don't like it, but we do a good fucking job of building warriors.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @LCpl X  @ArcticWarrior Good point.  We complain about having to be cops in Afg/Iraq, But police have to be police and their ROE is just madness.  I won't judge, it's a job I will not do.

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @Tango9  @LCpl X

 Those guys do and they are great schools but they cost huge $$$$.

 

I even thought about starting up a company to provide ranchers extra security on the border but its huge dollars and red tape even though the need is there the  money isnt. For what you would need to charge the rancher couldnt afford it. Now when company XYZ charges the State Dept for DS the money used to flow like water and probably still does, but thats our, yours and mine, tax dollars someone else spends.

 

You know you were an instructor, we ask 18 year old kids to move the world and hold ground in the shittiest places in the shittiest conditions. Most 18 year old E3s didnt have the scratch to buy gucci gear, stuck with the shitty issue crap and they make due and if given the choice would blow it on strippers anyway. American Soldiers are the greatest the world has seen, dont like my opinion TFB, this generation right now is the greatest COIN Army ever, with the most experience in the modern age.

But as I digress, yes its money and budget priorities from your local Deputy's to Mother army. Destroying shit costs dollars, and lots of em.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @ArcticWarrior  @LCpl X And for the record my BM looks like I dragged it behind my truck for 3 miles.

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @ArcticWarrior

 

Also take into consideration that policing is a completely different profession. You can only market so much of the tactical stuff, then after it's all about policing, knowing your beat, gum shoe work.

 

Your personality plays a big part in policing, soldiering not so much. More so with espionage. Although cops and spies can use more tactical training, at the end of the day, it's different work, requiring different types of personalities.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 2 Like

 @ArcticWarrior  @LCpl X I'm not trying to be a wet blanket, Arctic.  Just looking for a solution. 

 

What's missing is your last sentence:  that TL's and PLs, your NCOs and good officers stepped up.  I ask this not being sarcastic at all:  Is that missing in the LEO world?

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 3 Like

 @Tango9  @LCpl X

 Me I can do it in my sleep, M4 is second nature, but not all LEO types served and you would be surprised during rifle quals how many have never touched a rifle. And believe it or not some people are satisfied with yearly cert. and thats it.

Now most peoples Bushys are nice and black with no chips, exterior all pretty and clean. Now look at a guy on patrol in OEF, his M4 is dusty, chipped and looks like its been abused hard, well because it has seen a lot of rounds fired in anger. That 18 year old kid 8 months after his HS graduation may have all ready fired thousands of rounds real world, and we expect them to follow ROE, not freeze up in a firefight and show good judgement.

In a perfect world we all could go to Moyock and go through all the courses but its just not fiscally possible. LE Depts do a good job with what they have, most people dont understand the DOD budget vs your local PD or even State DPS budget. And when DHS grants dry up, and they will it will be worse.

 Hell on AD not everyone could go try for B4 because of budgets so TLs or Plt. Sgts, etc would go and teach everyone else what they learned.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 3 Like

 @ArcticWarrior  @LCpl X So here's a question:  Why don't all the old crusty dudes like Brandon, Chris K, Jack and hundreds of others (hell I could teach satellite ops) etc form a company that trains LE guys? 

 

Is it because there's no money?

 

As a nation, we have an unhealthy understanding of warfare, and some brilliant minds.  Samurai warriors have nothing on the experience we have given the last 50 years.

 

We shoot shit and blow shit up (occasionally alcohol is involved) but we have a nation of active duty and (more) former military that comprise a really, really scary bunch of badasses.

 

Perhaps that's why Let/AQ and various other dirtbags balk at bringing the war to our front door.

 

Walk into your local grocery store, Walmart, whatever.  You can spot the trained scary dudes and every time you go (depending on where you live) there's at least 5 of them with you buying milk and bananas.

 

So if, as you make clear, the average 11B knows more about controlling a situation, breaching, clearing, cover... why don't we market what we're good at?

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @ArcticWarrior  @LCpl X You're absolutely spot on:  you can't replace that experience.

But you either do nothing or you do what you can.

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName like.author.displayName like.author.displayName 3 Like

 @Tango9  @LCpl X

 Live action. Sorry but going to the range is different then QRF'n into a someone else's shit storm. Your avg 11B type has shot at hardcore bad guys in dust, snow, goats, rain, on his ass, exiting vehicles exfil fromhelos, down dark haj alleys, over tin fences, roofs etc, all the while clearing jams, getting back in the fight, providing overwatch all while being shot at. Its your job 24/7/365. Thats the op tempo. 400 rounds is nothing that can be 20 minutes out of one day. Now imagine what JSOC guys do with HVTs.

 Range time while neccesary doesnt replace being shot at and shooting back in a high tempo situation with the skill set to take on pro terrorists. LEO has no answer for that, and thankfully as Americans we dont. I dont ever want to think of any American city as Helmand Prv.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts

 @ArcticWarrior  @LCpl X I'm speaking from a position of total ignorance here (which happens fairly often, I've discovered) but I can drive 10 minutes, pull out my bushmaster and put 400 rounds down range. 

 

I can do reload, prone, standing kneeling, cover drills I learned years ago... and it costs me $5 and I can stay there until the sun goes down.

 

So if my job is LE, don't I have access to better ranges?  What am I missing here?

LCpl X
LCpl X 5pts

 @Tango9

 

I'm talking about post Colombine, rifles were around but only averaged 3 per shift. Nowadays there's more, especially since cops can buy their own rifles for work.

ArcticWarrior
ArcticWarrior 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @Tango9  @LCpl X

 Its also a matter of money, resources and practice to which even the biggest cities dont have enough. Watch a few years fromnow when DHS grant money dries up those LAVs will be sitting around gathering dust with dead batteries in all but the biggest Depts.

As far as your typical M4 training your avg 18 year old 11B is way more qualified then your average cop and even SWAT guys, its a matter of constant training. CAG/DEV do it for real everyday, LEO dont get to train as much and SWAT really hasnt seen a terrorist op here in the states, your average 11B in the 505th PIR is kicking doors down looking for bad guys everyday.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @LCpl X so standard loadout for a cruiser is sidearm +2 shotguns?  3 per shift?  in LA?  holy outgunned.

Tango9
Tango9 5pts like.author.displayName 1 Like

 @LCpl X Well, out here where I'm at I wouldn't be surprised to see a deputy pull out an AT-4.  I've lived in Oklahoma, Texas, Montana and Colorado and I think half the deputies "augmented" their kit with enough weapons and ammo in a cruiser to take a small city.

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