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Graham Brownbill Dstl Team Leader, Land Warfare Centre

OA support to Land Operations: OP TELIC. Graham Brownbill Dstl Team Leader, Land Warfare Centre. 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.

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Graham Brownbill Dstl Team Leader, Land Warfare Centre

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  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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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

  6. 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!

  7. 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.

  8. 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).

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 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.

  13. Measures of effectiveness

  14. 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”.

  15. 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.

  16. 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.

  17. 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.

  18. Example Results

  19. 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.

  20. Top Concerns of the Public – Total AO

  21. MoE Patrol Interview Reports Do You Have Confidence in The Future of Iraq? Basrah + Maysan + Muthanna + Dhi Qar

  22. Public Attitude to Patrols Basrah + Maysan + Muthanna + Dhi Qar

  23. Lessons!

  24. 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.

  25. 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.

  26. 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.

  27. 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.

  28. Above all KEEP IT SIMPLE!

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