This article got me curious. I've just finished reading Douglas Beattie's book about his 2008 experience as part of an OMLT embedded in an Afghan Kandak in Helmand province. It's, in my opinion, a fairly good read because he portrays the human cost and his own, personal suffering fairly well.
This was 2008. He talked about training under some Americans in Germany at the same course in Germany. I don't have the book on hand but I recall that he said that the techniques were well-taught but the American NCOs could not really answer questions of why things were done in this way rather than that.
And then, in Afghanistan when working with an American ETT, the Americans refused to go out on patrols whilst Beattie and his Irish Rangers wanted to take the Afghans out on patrols to push the Taliban into the Green Zone.
It gave me the overall sense that even between American and British training teams, there were different philosophies of how one should conduct a mentoring mission. The Americans seemed very hands-off, let the Afghans figure it out on their own whilst the British was the opposite, hands-on, drag them kicking and screaming onto the patrol route.
And interestingly, during the multiple instances when Beattie describes an ambush situation, he and his Royal Irish mates can't drive through the ambush as their training dictates. This is because the American-taught ANA jump out of their trucks and begin shooting wildly. Beattie describes this as part of the American training, where the ANA is taught to bring overwhelming firepower onto the ambushers and defeat them. In contrast, Beattie says, the British Army is taught to get out of the ambush as fast as possible.
I apologize if I've misrepresented either force or its philosophy but this is what I got from Beattie's book and the article made me decide to post this. I don't know if its accurate or just his opinion from a limited experience. It may not even be current since Beattie served in 2008.
This was 2008. He talked about training under some Americans in Germany at the same course in Germany. I don't have the book on hand but I recall that he said that the techniques were well-taught but the American NCOs could not really answer questions of why things were done in this way rather than that.
And then, in Afghanistan when working with an American ETT, the Americans refused to go out on patrols whilst Beattie and his Irish Rangers wanted to take the Afghans out on patrols to push the Taliban into the Green Zone.
It gave me the overall sense that even between American and British training teams, there were different philosophies of how one should conduct a mentoring mission. The Americans seemed very hands-off, let the Afghans figure it out on their own whilst the British was the opposite, hands-on, drag them kicking and screaming onto the patrol route.
And interestingly, during the multiple instances when Beattie describes an ambush situation, he and his Royal Irish mates can't drive through the ambush as their training dictates. This is because the American-taught ANA jump out of their trucks and begin shooting wildly. Beattie describes this as part of the American training, where the ANA is taught to bring overwhelming firepower onto the ambushers and defeat them. In contrast, Beattie says, the British Army is taught to get out of the ambush as fast as possible.
I apologize if I've misrepresented either force or its philosophy but this is what I got from Beattie's book and the article made me decide to post this. I don't know if its accurate or just his opinion from a limited experience. It may not even be current since Beattie served in 2008.
