An Email Query on Suppressive Fire Rates Doctrine

 (I received the following question via email. While I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the answer in passing several times herein, I figured it can never hurt to pound the answers in a little better.....--J.M.)

From a reader:

"And now my question, which you may wish to elaborate on in your blog:  What is a good rate of fire for suppressive fire?  Is there a rule of thumb for determining rate of fire for the area being suppressed and the number of friendly troops available?"
My response, in its entirety:


I generally try to teach two standard answers, modified by METT-TC (obviously).

The first magazine spent during an engagement, whether a react-to-contact, or react-to-ambush, gets put downrange as fast as you can humanly put it downrange, with any degree of accuracy. Rounds are put into every known, suspected, or likely position of enemy concealment or cover. I tell guys to try and achieve 4-5 rounds per second, as long as they're getting two or three rounds into every hidey-hole. The whole purpose is to keep the enemy's head down while the maneuver element begins to bound around, and to keep the enemy from having any opportunity to accurately respond to your fire. It's all about fire superiority at that point. Obviously, if you're discussing a far ambush situation, at 300+ meters, that's going to be slowed way the fuck down, but as I've been trying to get across, the G has a need to get inside and fight at eye-gouging distance if he wants to win without losing the fight to supporting fires, so it's a relevant and realistic target to aim for.

After the first mag is dumped, the shooter(s) should perform a speed reload (again, to maintain continuity of fires, since everyone is going to be running out at the same general time), and re-engage, slowing his rate of fire to one round or so every two seconds. Here, the idea is still to target known, suspected, or likely enemy positions, but you HAVE to slow it down to conserve ammunition. As the base-of-fire element is providing suppressive fire, if one man runs dry, he needs to COMMUNICATE with his buddies to let them know he's changing magazines. This allows them to slightly increase their rate-of-fire, in order to pick up his slack. Everyone wants to blather about "conservation of ammunition," which is a solid, good consideration. The crux however becomes....."what are you saving it for, if not to kill the enemy?" and "Which is more important to you? A bunch of ammunition you're packing around, or killing the enemy so you can resupply?" If your buddies in the maneuver element die because you were so concerned about "precision" fire and "making every shot count," I hope the rest of your team, and the families of the deceased, cut your nuts off and feed them to you as you bleed out.

Now obviously, if I have a two-man element working alone and they're in contact, they're going to be dumping mags at the enemy a LOT faster, individually, simply because of the need to dominate the fight, despite the numbers game. On the other hand, a platoon-sized element is not necessarily going to have every swinging Richard bringing the hate, since some will be pulling the security detail, and some may not even see the objective.

I often get accused in this blog, of overlooking the MOUT considerations of any future engagements between the resistance and the Federales/UN/JBTs/etc....It's not true. While many have jumped to my defense by pointing out that I live in the rural mountain west, and while I am firmly convinced of the need for a highly refined level of operational expertise in rural alpine operations for those of us who live out here (look at the difficulties Big Green is facing in the mountains of the Hindu Kush to this day, compared to the urban enclaves of Iraq that we managed to finally smash when we decided to engage with armor and heavy weapons), I am fully cognizant of the requirements for any future UW resistance to possess highly refined AMOUT capabilities (I would argue, minimally, precision-level MOUT abilities, with surgical-MOUT being far more ideal for maintenance of goodwill within the local civ-pop). The thing that too many people overlook, generally out of sheer ignorance of the realities of the battlefield, is that the fundamentals of SUT (fire and maneuver, supporting fires, speed, surprise, violence of action, security, close and intermediate distance marksmanship, TC3, and fundamental battle drills) remain the SAME, regardless of the operational environment in which they are performed. A react-to-contact is the same IAD whether you're performing it in downtown Boise or out in the Hindu Kush. In fact, in many ways, urban and alpine combat share more similarities and peculiarities than either does with other environmental areas, due to the three-dimensional nature of the ground combat battle-space, due to the elevation factor. One critical difference between rural operational areas and urban areas is the obvious presence of non-combatant civ-pop. Too many in the Resistance movement talk about killing bystanders rather cavalierly, in a "if you're not with us, you're with the enemy" approach that the .mil has taken a long time in Iraq and Afghanistan learning is just not true. Too often, for right or wrong, people stand on the sidelines to discover "what's in it for me?" Indiscriminate supporting fires killing their friends, neighbors, and loved ones is a surefire way to show them which side they want to ally with (and it's not going to be the terror side). Targeting non-combatants, by any sane definition, falls under the political term "terrorism," and ultimately, always fails, contrary what too many want to believe, for whatever twisted reasons.

In AMOUT operations, whether by paramilitary guerrilla force elements, or the subversive underground, suppressive fire is going to have to be EXTREMELY precise. Want to make winning an UW conflict harder? Recruit FOR the enemy by killing innocent non-combatants, so their family members turn against you. Utter-fucking-brilliance, that one...Instead, you have to resort to more precise methods. SBF elements ONLY bring suppressive fires if they can POSITIVELY identify that the INDIVIDUAL they are shooting is carrying a weapon with which he intends to engage the friendly force unit, and then he utilizes more precise firing methods than dumping a quick burst at where he thinks the bad guy is hiding. I missed the Mog by a few months, but one of the lessons that was learned through the community by that fight was, just because they're not carrying a weapon doesn't mean they are a non-combatant. Women and pre-teen kids acting as spotters were still active enemy actors. I know MSG Howe has discussed this common discrepancy in U.S. ROE many times over the years. I'm not saying don't shoot anyone whose conspiring against you, I'm saying, "Make sure you know who you are shooting, and why, in a built-up area environment, rather than focusing on bringing that stormcloud of steel onto the enemy's positions. Get the distinction? In such a case, your SBF element's fires may be extremely sporadic, or even non-existent, at times. It's all METT-TC.

Nevertheless, I was taught these non-doctrine doctrinal answers over the years, by multiple mentors. They've worked for me, so I continue to teach them. Thanks!

Nous Defion!
John Mosby
Somewhere in the Mountains

(PostScript: Boys and girls. I only have three spots for blog readers remaining open for the open-enrollment class in August in the Black Hills. If you are interested in this, let me know ASAP. --JM)