Graham Brownbill

1
OA support to Land Operations OP TELIC
Graham Brownbill Dstl Team Leader, Land Warfare
Centre
2
History of Land OA

• WW 2 OA invented for front line commands.
• Post war concentrated on Procurement Policy.
• Specialist teams supporting Northern Ireland and
  1 BR Corps survived.
• 1982 Falklands War Should have had OA.
• 1991 Gulf 1 Ad Hoc team taken from
  Scientific establishment.
• 1995-6 OA Branch Allied Rapid Reaction Corps
  (ARRC) deployed to Bosnia as part of IFOR.

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Land OA

• 1996 OA Cell formed (2 people) at Wilton,
  Wiltshire
• 1998 1999 Deployed to Bosnia.
• 1999 Expanded to 4 people.
• 1999 2000 Deployed to Kosovo.
• 2001 Deployed to Oman for Saif Sareea 2.
• 2002 Deployed to Afghanistan.
• 2003 Deployed to Iraq.
• 2003 Moved to Warminster and expanded to 6
  people.

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Land Warfare Centre OA branch

• Responsible for providing scientific and
  analytical advice to the whole of the front line
  army. This excludes the Allied Rapid Reaction
  Corps (ARRC) and Northern Ireland which have
  their own teams.
• Deployable
• HQ Multinational Division South East, Basrah
  Iraq,
• HQ 1 UK Armoured Division Herford Germany.
• HQ 3 UK Division Bulford, Wiltshire.
• Static
• UK Operations Staff Wilton, Wiltshire.
• Land Command, Wilton, Wiltshire.
• Land Warfare Centre, Warminster, Wiltshire.

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Tip of the ICEBERG
LWC OA Team 2 to 4 people in theatre Up to 5
people in UK
Theatre
UK
Support to Ops Group, 60 people, 9 teams
Augmentation pool, 30 people
Dstl 3000 people
MOD
Augmentation
Industry universities
Reachback
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Deployed Team features

• All MOD civilian teams
• No staff officers.
• No contractors.
• All field trained including NBC, mine awareness,
  living in the field and Health and safety and
  must pass annual medical.
• When deployed fully integrated into Headquarters,
  wear combat clothing and treated like staff
  officers except
• Unarmed.
• 3 to 4 month tours of duty.
• Right to say no!

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Deployed Team features

• If you cannot carry it you cannot take it.
• Very good military awareness and self confidence.
  
• Generalist OA skills, not specialist.
• Good basic statistics, database and IT skills.
• Anything else needs reachback.

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OP TELIC TEAMS

• Jan 03 Pre war (Team 1).
• Mar 03 Warfighting (Team 1).
• May 03 Honeymoon period (Team 2).
• Jul 03 Sustained period (Teams 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
  8).
• The future (team 9 etc).

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Team 1 Warfighting OA

• Busiest pre-combat.
• Limited time during combat for OA.
• Questions were fast or quick, often to very
  short timescales - typically 2 - 48 hours before
  the answer will be used.
• Reachback - scope of questions very wide so
  analytical community need procedures for fast
  response.

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Team 2

• Deployed shortly after the end of the war
  (according to President Bush) until the end of
  July.
• 2 people based in Basrah airport throughout.
• Main effort was Measures of Effectiveness
  surveys
• Other effort included
• Electricity.
• Crime statistics.
• Fuel shortage.
• Intelligence databases.
• PSYOPs surveys.

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Honeymoon phase

• Population very friendly. Surveys said vast
  majority wanted Coalition to stay.
• In tests 9 out of 10 waved back.
• Able to travel freely
• Visited all brigades and battlegroups weekly or
  monthly.
• Visited schools and the prison.
• Went on infantry patrol.
• Even Had a weekend break in Baghdad.

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Effect of security situation

• Situation deteriorated after the murder of 6
  Royal Military Police.
• Did not have a blanket ban on travelling,
  However
• Each case taken on its merits.
• Harder to find big enough escort.
• Avoid certain areas and routes..
• Still managed to travel quite a lot, but as units
  rotated corporate memory started to suffer.
• Subsequent teams visits reduced down from 3 trips
  a week to 1 trip a month.

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Measures of effectiveness
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What did we WANT MOE to Achieve?

• Gain Impression of the overall situation.
• Counter bad press.
• Assist in Briefing VIPs/Politicians.
• See indirect effects of Coalition forces.
• Indicate potential difficulties before they
  arise.
• Prioritise areas for aid.
• Help with force protection - Hearts and Minds.

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Advantages

• British army experience in NI, Bosnia, Kosovo and
  Afghanistan encouraged a policy of soldiers
  relating to the locals and wherever possible
  communicating with them.
• OA had completed similar work in NI, Bosnia,
  Kosovo and Afghanistan.
• Within the Area of Operations (AO) coalition
  members were willing to follow UK style of
  patrolling.
• General population willing to give benefit of the
  doubt.

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Problems

• Very poor infrastructure and lack of pre war
  data.
• Shortage of interpreters and Islamists.
• Interim government overwhelmed by problems.
• Very high levels of crime and petty theft.
• Very limited data on what was happening on the
  ground.

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Strategy adopted

• Soldiers on patrol to conduct survey.
• Each company to conduct 1 survey per day.
• Survey was in two parts
• part 1 the soldiers completed themselves.
• part 2 when the patrol had an interpreter they
  would choose a local and ask them to answer a few
  questions.
• Both parts would be handed into OA at the end of
  the week and OA typed them into a database.
• Extensive briefing of results.

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Example Results
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Data collected?

• Included
• Availability of
• Food (staple food availability).
• Water (Drinking/Utility).
• Shelter (condition).
• Local Area Stability
• Attacks on Patrol/Civilians.
• Crime.
• Public Reaction to patrols.

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Top Concerns of the Public Total AO
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MoE Patrol Interview Reports
Do You Have Confidence in The Future of Iraq?
Basrah Maysan
Muthanna Dhi Qar
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Public Attitude to Patrols
Basrah Maysan
Muthanna Dhi Qar
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Lessons!
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Lessons

• Need Commanders to buy-in.
• Few questions consistently. Not many
  ever-changing.
• Once you have a few results, advertise them.
• Let the story tell itself -avoid pre judging
  results.
• Chase all incomplete or badly filled results.

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The right place at the right time

• Travelling to the military unit
• Adds credibility.
• Avoids ivory tower analysis.
• Avoids chinese whispers.
• Variety of location and task adds interest and
  delays insanity.
• However, must be in touch with the security
  situation.
• If OA is not there the question is not asked.

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Avoid

• Good news filter!
• Adding to the pressure on subordinate units to
  have better statistics.
• Irrelevant or meaningless questions or questions
  that will take years to change.
• Assuming that the data collectors care or
  understand the problem! Explain - check -
  explain - check.
• Scrapping old measures every time the commander
  changes over.

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General lessons

• Analysts must understand what is happening and
  who owns the data.
• Not all help given is genuine OA but often lead
  to a source of data or a more appropriate task.
• Do not try and collect to much data.
• Do not let the data drive the operation, instead
  paint a picture and let the military interpret
  it.
• Avoid Vietnam style statistics.

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Above all

• KEEP IT SIMPLE!