Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Mad Mortarman

Mortars suck. I absolutely hate mortars. For me they are the single most fear inducing weapon in Iraq because a good mortar team can strike when they please from where they please and have an excellent chance of escaping capture. Unless the mortar team is close enough and you are paying extremely close attention to hear the launch from the tube the only warning you get for an incoming round is when it strikes.

If you are on a large enough base sometimes there is an early warning system and a "big voice" to provide you a few seconds to find cover before the rounds start coming in. That's assuming the system is working.

In 2004 I was utilizing a Port-O-John when the "big voice" went off indicating rounds were incoming. Being deployed for several months already I had come to terms with the possibility of dying. I had not come to terms with the possibility of dying in a Port-O-John. It's moments like those that you find yourself pleading with God.


I'm too awesome for this to be my tomb

Rockets don't bother me as much despite the whistling noise they produce when they are flying in. Even IEDs are not that scary because they usually can be avoided with some good pattern and route analysis. When not avoided armored vehicles typically stop the blast.

At the National Training Center at FT Irwin, CA they have a name for the mortar teams that plague the battlefield and harrass the units training for war: The Mad Mortarman.

He's named that due to his skill in evading capture and hitting you when you least expect it, or in some cases when you actually expect it but can do nothing about it. The Mad Mortarman roams the desert striking when helicopters are refueling, update briefs are being conducted, and at 2:30 am when all you want is some much needed rest. He has been a thorn in the side of every brigade that has gone through NTC since its creation in 1980.

Nearly every base in Iraq has its own Mad Mortarman striking at whim and causing momentary chaos much like when an ant hill is disturbed; FOB Cobra was no exception.

5-1 Cav warned us when we first arrived that there was an indirect fire threat to Cobra but the base had not been attacked since July. The S2 really only gave me a vague hand wave as to where the attacks were coming from and every person I asked had a different opinion as to the point of origin (greatest acronym in the Army, point of origin = POO). I didn't give it a second thought and determined to figure out the problem if it became a problem.

It became a problem in October. The first attack the team only hit us with one round, and it was a dud. Two weeks later they struck again with more rounds, not duds this time. About two weeks after that in November we were hit a third time. We now had a pattern, but the location of the attacks were in debate. Our systems for determining locations of IDF attacks weren't functioning properly. Were the attacks coming from the river to our west or the hilly, broken terrain to our east?

We searched both areas. Conducted patrols through the villages near the river and asked the locals for information. Set up ambushes in the days after the attacks. Set up a sniper in one of the guard towers. Kept a hot gun (our own mortar team) set up on random nights. The SF team even attempted to walk from the FOB to the likely attack site but were thwarted by wild dogs who gave them away. We were reacting, not forcing the enemy to react to us.

The FOB was hit a fourth time in late November. The squadron commander was becoming impatient. It was only a matter of time before someone was injured or killed. By now we had at least determined the general area where they were hitting us from. C Troop searched the area numerous times to attempt to find the exact location or possibly the tube. We were unable to keep a constant hot gun up due to manning constraints and how stretched thin the squadron was but due to the two week pattern established we set one up on the days likely for the next attack.

The likely nights came and went. Staff officers joked it was only a matter of time before the next attack and we should all hang out up on the roof of HQ just in case. Maybe a round would wound us and we could go home. Another joke was going around that the squadron commander was the culprit because he was never at Cobra when the attacks occurred.

It was decided that the squadron needed to conduct a practice drill just so we would be prepared for the next attack. Artillery simulaters would be used, ops would call the mortar crew with the coordinates, and then the team would simulate counter fire...no rounds fired. Only one thing went wrong that night...the mortar crew fired live rounds. Lucky for us the target was an empty island in the river.

Attacks against the FOB ceased until March.

The Iraqi Army was convinced that our accidental mortar shot showed that we were willing and able to shoot back so the mortar team was scared off. I figured they had run out of rounds. Helping was an operation just prior to Christmas in which the Iraqi Army and the SF team captured a couple of individuals likely responsible for the attacks. Firing those rounds was probably the best mistake we ever made that deployment.

IDF attacks shifted in January to targeting the combined checkpoints we had established with our Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga partners. A combination of mortars and rockets were used in those attacks and it is likely that the individuals hitting our FOB were not the same as those hitting our checkpoints. Vague patterns were set in those attacks but the attack locations were almost always different. The rounds were wildely inaccurate most of the time and generally were nothing more than a nuisance.

Cobra would only be hit a couple of more times. On March 13 PFC McLyman was killed when a round struck near the dining facility. It was the first attack since November and threw us all for a loop. Her death was the Brigade's first death from enemy contact in the entire deployment, 7 months in. The Iraqi Army brigade established a guard tower at the attack site and manned it during the night. In April a rocket would be fired at the FOB from an entirely new location but that was the final attack against the base during 1-14's deployment.

As I was sitting around at another base waiting to redeploy back to the States I learned that Cobra had been hit again by mortars...from the location we had been getting hit from. I sighed and said, "well, it's 2-14 Cav's problem now".

Damn that Mad Mortarman.

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