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Warrenpoint: A case of a Paramilitary force against a conventional army.

Wolfe Tone

First off I would rather this thread doesn't become a debate on the politics behind the attack and whether it was justified or not. Or on the PIRA or for that matter the BA and their justification in being in the North in the first place(and all the usual jazz that seems to pop up whenever the BA or the PIRA are mentioned). This is intended to be a general discussion on a conventional army(in this case the BA) fighting against a paramilitary organization(the PIRA). I chose Warrenpoint as an example because it is one of the best known incidents between the two belligerents and was the PIRAs biggest victory.

Warrenpoint attack: A excellently planned and executed guerrilla attack or a series of BA blunders?

From Wikipedia:

At 16:40 a 500 pounds (227 kg) fertiliser bomb hidden in a lorry loaded with strawbales, parked close to Narrow Water Castle, was detonated by remote control as an army convoy of a Land-Rover and two four-ton trucks drove past on the A2 road. The explosion caught the rear truck in the convoy killing six members of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment.[13]
After the first explosion the British soldiers, believing that they had come under attack from the IRA, began firing across the narrow maritime border with the Republic of Ireland, a distance of only 57 m (187 feet).

At 17.12, thirty two minutes after the first explosion, a second device concealed in milk pails exploded against the gate lodge on the opposite side of the road, completely destroying it. The IRA had been studying how the British Army acted after a bombing and correctly assessed that the soldiers would set up an Incident Command Point (ICP) in the nearby gate house.
The second explosion, caused by an 800 pounds (363 kg) fertiliser home-made bomb, killed twelve soldiers - ten from the Parachute Regiment died along with the two Queen's Own Highlanders soldiers.

I find it interesting the idea of a large conventional army fighting against a small force. How were the PIRA able, in enemy controlled territory so to say, to construct such large bombs find out the BAs route and position bombs?

Was the high causality rate a result of BA errors(such as not checking for the second bomb) Did the BA follow correct procedures? Was the attacks success a result of catastrophic intelligence failure and lax security?

Personally I feel that the troubles are a very interesting case of a paramilitary organization causing major problems for a conventional army. How could the BA have acted differently and more effectively combated them? Have lessons been learned from the troubles and have they influenced the BAs operations in the Middle East?

What should the BA have done differently in combating this particular paramilitary force?

Hopefully this can be an interesting discussion.

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Fratton Fred

Morlar wrote: »

Can you just confirm here, do you think say, in Iraq during the height of the early war, or in Afghanistan would the special forces of the west refrain from killing a high value target if there was going to be 3 or 4 civilians killed ?

I do think there is a point at which they would refrain . . . . if it meant taking out say a wedding party or 40-50 innocent people (though depending on the target perhaps they would not), but in the scenario above of 3-4 innocent people would they always be relied upon to refrain from that and hold off until another day that might not come ?

Now consider the size of their forces and their military capapbility compared to that of the then IRA. Personally I don't think it is as clear cut as you would make out.

who knows. There is footage available of an RAF pilot steering a smart bomb into the desert because the car it is tracking is headed into a bult up area and he can't be sure there would be no civilian casualites, so there is an example of this. I guess it also comes down to orders as well. if the general order is to avoid civilian casualties at all costs then that makes a huge difference as well.

Lastly, an operation to take out a miklitary commander is somewhat different to a revenge attack on an innocent man.

Lets face it, the IRA made a huge PR mess up killing Mountbatten and the story afterwards about it being revenge for an OBE i=was just a hastily made up story.

They killed him because he was a member of the Royal Family and they had the means to do it. It was a terror attack, not a military one.

troubleshooter

Morlar wrote: »

Can you just confirm here, do you think say, in Iraq during the height of the early war, or in Afghanistan would the special forces of the west refrain from killing a high value target if there was going to be 3 or 4 civilians killed ?

I do think there is a point at which they would refrain . . . . if it meant taking out say a wedding party or 40-50 innocent people (though depending on the target perhaps they would not), but in the scenario above of 3-4 innocent people would they always be relied upon to refrain from that and hold off until another day that might not come ?

Now consider the size of their forces and their military capapbility compared to that of the then IRA. Personally I don't think it is as clear cut as you would make out.

Your morally twisting things, Mountbatten was an 80 yr old man not a dangerous Islamic terrorist. And no I dont think the SAS would blow up a boat with British children on board to take out a target.

Thats what the PIRA did they blew up a boat with Irish children on board to get their target.

Wolfe Tone

the_syco wrote: »

I'm thinking that they picked a route that is used a lot, put a bomb on it, and another bomb nearby, and waited a while, until someone went by. If this was true, it would be a "huge victory", but not an "excellently planned and executed guerrilla attack", as clicking the trigger the moment someone goes by the bomb is hoping for the best. It's also risky, as the trigger men could be found before the bomb is denotated.

Well it was well planned and clever that they had observed the Brits activities and correctly guessed that a command post would be set up at the gate house. The second bomb is the most interesting thing about the ambush imo. Does anyone know if the BAs response to bombings re setting up command posts changed in light of the attack?

Guys this thread is about the PIRA and the BA and how they engaged each other, not about Mountbatten.

concussion

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Does anyone know if the BAs response to bombings re setting up command posts changed in light of the attack?

It has. Check out '8 Lives Down', a book written by a BA Ammunition Technical Officer who served in NI and Iraq. He obviously doesn't go into specifics but there's some good general information in it. (Although I wouldn't discount there being dis-information thrown in also!)

Morlar

troubleshooter wrote: »

Your morally twisting things,

No it is not. The discussion has moved to a point of the acceptable level of civilian casualties. The point was made that the IRA were prepared to kill innocent people to achieve their aim, the counter point was made that so are the british and america etc armies. In that context it is a perfectly valid point to make.

Morlar

I would agree with the OP that this is going off track & I don't want to contribute to that any further so unless it is to respond directly to a point made in my direction I will probably stay off the thread from here on out. It is an interesting area of general discussion imo.

BlaasForRafa

Morlar wrote: »

I would agree with the OP that this is going off track & I don't want to contribute to that any further so unless it is to respond directly to a point made in my direction I will probably stay off the thread from here on out. It is an interesting area of general discussion imo.

Its something that comes up in every contentious thread and gets at what the difference between the military and politics forum is (or should be).

Some people want to talk about what happened in a factual and objective way, discuss what happened and why it happened by sticking to the facts whereas some people prefer to talk about who was right and wrong and the morality of what happened. Both discussions have their place....as long as it is done in the right place.

Wolfe Tone

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Its something that comes up in every contentious thread and gets at what the difference between the military and politics forum is (or should be).

Some people want to talk about what happened in a factual and objective way, discuss what happened and why it happened by sticking to the facts whereas some people prefer to talk about who was right and wrong and the morality of what happened. Both discussions have their place....as long as it is done in the right place.

Perhaps somone could start another thread then?

BlaasForRafa

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Perhaps somone could start another thread then?

For those who want to they should go ahead. I have little interest in debating the morality as my decision has already been made, I'm more interested in teasing out the facts. Its something that plagues every Israel thread, some people go on and on about the morality of whatever event which is really a kind of boring "I'm right and you're wrong" never-ending type of argument.

While facts are always up for debate a lot of the time a consensus can be achieved when people stick to the evidence.

Fratton Fred

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

For those who want to they should go ahead. I have little interest in debating the morality as my decision has already been made, I'm more interested in teasing out the facts. Its something that plagues every Israel thread, some people go on and on about the morality of whatever event which is really a kind of boring "I'm right and you're wrong" never-ending type of argument.

While facts are always up for debate a lot of the time a consensus can be achieved when people stick to the evidence.

I'm not sure it is that easy to seperate the two.

The inference from the OP is that the operation was a brilliant tactical military exercise, but would a professional army employ the tactics employed by the IRA? it is much easier to plan and carry out an operation like this when you have no regard for other human life, which is wrong.

The rights and the wrongs of it must come in to play, because if the IRA played by the same rules that the British Army were expected to adhere to, then it would have been very difficult to pull off an operation like this.

I'm not sure what the OP is trying to gauge here and how much scope for discussion there is (if kept tightly on the subject).

PatsytheNazi

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

It was an accidental death not a murder and getting facetious about it does not honour his memory. The paras didn't go "Oh look theres a civilian lets kill him", he was just a guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. The only murders that day were of the 18 BA soldiers.

So an " accidental death " was it ? (A) Soldier sees unarmed civilian on Co. Louth side across the lough. (B) Soldier carefully takes aim down the sight of his rifle for several seconds (C) Soldier carefully squeezes trigger shooting civilian dead. That's what I call the deliberate shooting of an unarmed civilian and hence murder.

BTW, his cousin also was shot but survived. And don't give me this sh!te that he had a fishing rod and they thought he was triggering the bomb that troubleshooter posted earlier. I read about Warrenpoint before, have the TV3 programme recorded on DVD and NEVER heard of this fishing rod BS. He's always posting excuses for the Brits like the shooting of 16 year old John Boyle on another thread.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66741230&postcount=96

Wolfe Tone

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I'm not sure it is that easy to seperate the two.

The inference from the OP is that the operation was a brilliant tactical military exercise,

I posed the question about whether it was a brilliant tactical military exercise or did the BA mess up.

but would a professional army employ the tactics employed by the IRA?

I would say yes, in the instance of Warrenpoint anyway. Particularly in an instance of a small force fighting against a much bigger better equipped enemy.

it is much easier to plan and carry out an operation like this when you have no regard for other human life, which is wrong.

Is it much different than dropping a bomb or firing a missile? I say no.

The rights and the wrongs of it must come in to play,

Not in this thread they needn't.

I'm not sure what the OP is trying to gauge here and how much scope for discussion there is (if kept tightly on the subject).

Its pretty obvious if you read the OP. This is intended to be a discussion on the military actions(in the Military forum) and the lessons learned from them and not the morals or the rights and wrongs of the troubles(try the Politics forum).

troubleshooter

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

So an " accidental death " was it ? (A) Soldier sees unarmed civilian on Co. Louth side across the lough. (B) Soldier carefully takes aim down the sight of his rifle for several seconds (C) Soldier carefully squeezes trigger shooting civilian dead. That's what I call the deliberate shooting of an unarmed civilian and hence murder.

BTW, his cousin also was shot but survived. And don't give me this sh!te that he had a fishing rod and they thought he was triggering the bomb that troubleshooter posted earlier. I read about Warrenpoint before, have the TV3 programme recorded on DVD and NEVER heard of this fishing rod BS. He's always posting excuses for the Brits like the shooting of 16 year old John Boyle on another thread.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66741230&postcount=96

Is there anything you can get right?
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/NARROW-WATER-ANNIVERSARY-Beauty-spot.5593522.jp

An uninvolved civilian, Michael Hudson, 29, an Englishman whose father was a coachman at Buckingham Palace, was killed by British forces during the shooting, and his cousin Barry Hudson injured. The dead man was at first suspected of being a dead terrorist but it was later revealed that Mr Hudson had been on a fishing holiday in Co Louth.

....Think about it brainiac, a bomb goes off, your deaf, there is carnage, body parts, metal and smoke everywhere, ammo cooking off, you think your under fire and possibly are, you are in a state of shock, 300 yards away a guy is fishing, easy to think in the chaos he is part of the bombing that the fishing rod is a radio antenna.

PatsytheNazi

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I'm not sure it is that easy to seperate the two.

The inference from the OP is that the operation was a brilliant tactical military exercise, but would a professional army employ the tactics employed by the IRA? it is much easier to plan and carry out an operation like this when you have no regard for other human life, which is wrong.

The rights and the wrongs of it must come in to play, because if the IRA played by the same rules that the British Army were expected to adhere to, then it would have been very difficult to pull off an operation like this.

I'm not sure what the OP is trying to gauge here and how much scope for discussion there is (if kept tightly on the subject).

You want to hide behind teh rights and wrongs because you just want to rant about that the IRA were inhuman baby eaters and drag the discussion into the gutter just like you did with the Did the PIRA have an official uniform thread. As the OP Morlar in post #43 states above, "The rights and the wrongs of it must come in to play, Not in this thread they needn't. "

And as for " no regard for other human life ", God that's rich coming from a supporter of those murdering ba$tards the Parachute regiment.

Fratton Fred

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

You want to hide behind teh rights and wrongs because you just want to rant about that the IRA were inhuman baby eaters and drag the discussion into the gutter just like you did with the Did the PIRA have an official uniform thread. As the OP Morlar in post #43 states above, "The rights and the wrongs of it must come in to play, Not in this thread they needn't. "

And as for " no regard for other human life ", God that's rich coming from a supporter of those murdering ba$tards the Parachute regiment.

OK Patsy, what ever you say:rolleyes:

PatsytheNazi

troubleshooter wrote: »

Is there anything you can get right?
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/NARROW-WATER-ANNIVERSARY-Beauty-spot.5593522.jp

An uninvolved civilian, Michael Hudson, 29, an Englishman whose father was a coachman at Buckingham Palace, was killed by British forces during the shooting, and his cousin Barry Hudson injured. The dead man was at first suspected of being a dead terrorist but it was later revealed that Mr Hudson had been on a fishing holiday in Co Louth.

....Think about it brainiac, a bomb goes off, your deaf, there is carnage, body parts, metal and smoke everywhere, ammo cooking off, you think your under fire and possibly are, you are in a state of shock, 300 yards away a guy is fishing, easy to think in the chaos he is part of the bombing that the fishing rod is a radio antenna.

The guy was standing on over in Co. Louth, whether he had a fishing rod or not - well I certainly have never heard the they thought he was holding an antennae to trigger the bomb excuse :rolleyes: And anyway, what was to make them think it was done by an antennae and jump to the conclusion that a guy standing on a sea bank or pier was holding a detonating attentae and not a fishing rod standing there for all the world to see him ? :rolleyes: They could also have thought it might have been a command wire, trip wire, even a timed device. Excuses, excuses, excuses

PatsytheNazi

Fratton Fred wrote: »

OK Patsy, what ever you say:rolleyes:

Well maybe it should be out of respect for the OP rather than me.

Fratton Fred

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

I posed the question about whether it was a brilliant tactical military exercise or did the BA mess up.

fair enough,

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Is it much different than dropping a bomb or firing a missile? I say no.

firing a missile or dropping a bomb isn't the problem, it is where you fire it and at whom.

How many bombs did the British Army use in Northern Ireland by the way? just to compare tactics.

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

its pretty obvious if you read the OP. This is intended to be a discussion on the military actions(in the Military forum) and the lessons learned from them and not the morals or the rights and wrongs of the troubles(try the Politics forum).

Maybe I didn't make my point well.

One of the learning curves th British army had to go through was to understand exactly what lengths the IRA would go to and what depths they would stoop to. Warrenpoint helped them understand that.

troubleshooter

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

The guy was standing on over in Co. Louth, whether he had a fishing rod or not - well I certainly have never heard the they thought he was holding an antennae to trigger the bomb excuse :rolleyes: And anyway, what was to make them think it was done by an antennae and jump to the conclusion that a guy standing on a sea bank or pier was holding a detonating attentae and not a fishing rod standing there for all the world to see him ? :rolleyes: They could also have thought it might have been a command wire, trip wire, even a timed device. Excuses, excuses, excuses

You obviously dont know the location, there is no pier or sea bank there, theres a river with rolling countryside and hills behind it.

Hence the name narrrowater.

Wolfe Tone

Fratton Fred wrote: »

fair enough,

firing a missile or dropping a bomb isn't the problem, it is where you fire it and at whom

As I said earlier I don't want to get into a debate about whether it was justified or not.

How many bombs did the British Army use in Northern Ireland by the way? just to compare tactics.

The BA and the PIRA were completely different. We are talking about a conventional army fighting a paramilitary one. Of course they used different tactics. I could easily say "they just shoot innocent protesters, scumbags!" but thats the type of slagging match I dont want this thread to descend into. It is blatantly obvious that you do want it to descend into just that, that much is obvious from the Uniform thread, and your comments so far here.

If you want to go start the usual sh!tstorm over on politics and debate the justifications of x and y then go ahead, I may drop by.

BlaasForRafa

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I'm not sure it is that easy to seperate the two.

The inference from the OP is that the operation was a brilliant tactical military exercise, but would a professional army employ the tactics employed by the IRA? it is much easier to plan and carry out an operation like this when you have no regard for other human life, which is wrong.

The rights and the wrongs of it must come in to play, because if the IRA played by the same rules that the British Army were expected to adhere to, then it would have been very difficult to pull off an operation like this.

I'm not sure what the OP is trying to gauge here and how much scope for discussion there is (if kept tightly on the subject).

I have to say that many state armies would carry out ambushes of that type. The germans were certainly fond of booby traps and IEDs as were the british. The americans employed the claymore mine to great effect in the Vietnam conflict.

BlaasForRafa

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

So an " accidental death " was it ? (A) Soldier sees unarmed civilian on Co. Louth side across the lough. (B) Soldier carefully takes aim down the sight of his rifle for several seconds (C) Soldier carefully squeezes trigger shooting civilian dead. That's what I call the deliberate shooting of an unarmed civilian and hence murder.

BTW, his cousin also was shot but survived. And don't give me this sh!te that he had a fishing rod and they thought he was triggering the bomb that troubleshooter posted earlier. I read about Warrenpoint before, have the TV3 programme recorded on DVD and NEVER heard of this fishing rod BS. He's always posting excuses for the Brits like the shooting of 16 year old John Boyle on another thread.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=66741230&postcount=96

Your viewing the events through the haze of your own bias.

How about you try putting yourself in the position of the soldiers that were ambushed. A huge bomb has gone off destroying the rear truck in your convoy, 6 of your comrades have not only been killed, their bodies have been ripped apart and the scene is covered in their bones and flesh. The irish border is across the river and is a logical position for the PIRA to ambush from and escape. You hear firing (what turned out to be ammo exploding most likely) and you see people raise something in their hands across the river, so what do you do? Wait for them to fire at you (which seems like what they are doing at the time) or fire and take the threat out?

Fratton Fred

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

As I said earlier I don't want to get into a debate about whether it was justified or not.

The BA and the PIRA were completely different. We are talking about a conventional army fighting a paramilitary one. Of course they used different tactics. I could easily say "they just shoot innocent protesters, scumbags!" but thats the type of slagging match I dont want this thread to descend into. It is blatantly obvious that you do want it to descend into just that, that much is obvious from the Uniform thread, and your comments so far here.

If you want to go start the usual sh!tstorm over on politics and debate the justifications of x and y then go ahead, I may drop by.

Despite yourbating, the only person I see doing that is Patsy.

PatsytheNazi

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

How were the PIRA able, in enemy controlled territory so to say, to construct such large bombs find out the BAs route and position bombs?

Well I'd say the bombs were probably constructed in nearby south Armagh, though Monaghan and Louth would also be a possibility. But I wonder, and not just on this operation, how the IRA could know such detailed information on the time etc the Parachute regiment would be going past that point. Maybe they had an inside spy in the barracks, maybe eavesdropping on radio communications ?

A good example of their intelligence system was when internment was been introduced on 9th August 1971 which was supposed to smash the IRA. The IRA had advance warning of it as they were listening in to British phone calls with stolen telecommunications equipment and the message was intercepted by senior IRA man Brendan Hughes. So senior IRA men were on the run and hardly a major figure in the IRA was captured.

PatsytheNazi

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I have to say that many state armies would carry out ambushes of that type. The germans were certainly fond of booby traps and IEDs as were the british. The americans employed the claymore mine to great effect in the Vietnam conflict.

I remember reading in Ernie O'Malley's on Another Man's Wound, how British soldiers ( he doesn't mention the RIC doing this ) in pub or wherever, would state he could understand why the Irish wanted the British out etc and in a so called drunken friendly way would give a few bullets to someone he knew to be sympathetic to the IRA. However when the bullets were loaded and fired they often exploded in the firearm causing very serious injuries as they had been doctored before hand and word was sent around that they were not to use bullets provided in such a way, only what they recovered after an ambush etc

troubleshooter

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Well I'd say the bombs were probably constructed in nearby south Armagh, though Monaghan and Louth would also be a possibility. But I wonder, and not just on this operation, how the IRA could know such detailed information on the time etc the Parachute regiment would be going past that point. Maybe they had an inside spy in the barracks, maybe eavesdropping on radio communications ?

A good example of their intelligence system was when internment was been introduced on 9th August 1971 which was supposed to smash the IRA. The IRA had advance warning of it as they were listening in to British phone calls with stolen telecommunications equipment and the message was intercepted by senior IRA man Brendan Hughes. So senior IRA men were on the run and hardly a major figure in the IRA was captured.

But it has been explained to you they did not know a unit was coming or what unit, its one of 3 major routes into Newry and the main one from Bessbrook, nor did they know the unit that would pass by.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1562283/Gen-Sir-Mike-Jackson-relives-IRA-Paras-bombs.html

To Quote Gen Mike Jackson

A Company would be coming in by road convoy, which was always a concern; the route would be chosen at random to vary any pattern we might have been setting. The choice was to be a fateful one. The convoy, a Land Rover and two lorries carrying 26 men of A Company, was sent south along the coast and then up the eastern shore of the estuary of the Newry River.

Wolfe Tone

Well they had a reasonable idea that they would, and knew from previous incidents what would happen after the first detonation so thats how they knew were to place the second bomb.

I think its unlikely that there was no intelligence leak. I doubt they were there every day for say a week with two huge bombs without arousing suspicion.

troubleshooter

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

Well they had a reasonable idea that they would, and knew from previous incidents what would happen after the first detonation so thats how they knew were to place the second bomb.

I think its unlikely that there was no intelligence leak. I doubt they were there every day for say a week with two huge bombs without arousing suspicion.

The trailer had been there 3 days, with hay on it, its a farming area, a bomb in a haystack on a trailer was a new tactic, previously landmines were used, the PIRA unit simply waited. The fact a 4 tonner came along and paras were in it was simply luck.

The second bomb was in milk churns behind hiddem behind a wall.

Perhaps you should post evidence of your claim of an intel. leak or stop making wild claims.

Wolfe Tone

The trailer had been there 3 days, the PIRA unit simply waited. The fact a 4 tonner came along and paras were in it was simply luck.

I disagree. They would not have been there in the first place unless they thought it likely that there would be BA movement along that road.

troubleshooter

MUSSOLINI wrote: »

I disagree. They would not have been there in the first place unless they thought it likely that there would be BA movement along that road.

Do the maths, there are three major routes in Newry, it was only a matter of time before an army or RUC vehicle passed by.

It was a well planned ambush, nothing more.