SECRET
UNITED STATES ARMY
INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY COMMAND, FORT BELVOIR, VA
23 SEP 2022
(S) Fixed Enemy Defenses
(S)
Above: A still taken from unlabeled footage, depicting NWRC forces opening fire against a distant platoon of US soldiers. An SD card containing the reel, which is suspected of being recorded during Phase 03-22 of OCS, was recovered by members of A Co. during an assault against a NWRC-held position in Severkuldzha.(U) Overview(U) *All acronyms utilized in the following brief are proactively defined and utilized strictly for the streamlining of text and characters. All acronyms in the following report are defined/transcribed in full upon initial use, and then abbreviated for subsequent use.
CUI - Controlled Unclassified Information: Previously "For Offical Use Only/FOUO" caveat for classification of internally distributed unclassified information intended for controlled release to authorized persons only; not sensitive enough to warrant SECRET marking and handling procedures.
(S) This report's purpose is to aggregate all known data on enemy fixed fortifications, tactics, and philosophy ahead of the planned assault on COP Winston. All contents herein represent the projected behavior of the New World Revolutionary Corps (NWRC) as well as their allied militias. All information herein is considered current as of Operation Clear Skies Phase 04-22. General terrain/topographical notes and battlespace definition are documented in the following report:
INSCOM Intelligence Report 27AUG22 - AO Profile: Kirov Outskirts
(U) General Disposition
(CUI) NWRC forces claim considerable strength, with NWRC-aligned sources boasting numbers in the low tens of thousands. A 25% minimum of the aforementioned "forces" are believed to be auxiliary or logistical forces unsuitable for front-line deployment. Such secondary units are thought to include, but are not limited to: minors, the elderly, and walking wounded.
(S) Preliminary intelligence obtained from EPWs taken by 1-506th indicates a significant number of those serving the NWRC are not ideologues, radicals, or politically-driven, but rather press-ganged military-age males sent to backfill combat losses or undermanned units. Further assessment of force composition is currently ongoing. Any relevant/tactically advantageous intel will be published in a future INSCOM.
(CUI) Defensive Tactics
(S) Unsupported NWRC formations have consistently lacked stopping power during all major engagements with 1 BCT units, and infantry skirmishes have resulted in enemy forces routing. Enemy commanders appear to be reluctant to commit large elements to engaging US forces directly without first leveraging a significant advantage. While evidence has come to light detailing training of NWRC units by foreign actors, said training is not sufficient to overcome friendly light infantry assaults in close combat.
(C) Militias have fared worse still, and are usually destroyed outright when caught in open terrain. Any training that they do have is minimalist, though such deficits are thought to be made up for by fanaticism and ideology. Target engagement will be fleeting and limited outside of prepared positions.
(C) It is S-2's opinion that the NWRC leadership, at present, favor an indirect and passive defense strategy. There exists no known mechanism for them to engage with UNOTURM peacekeepers in any consistent fashion while also channeling a manpower surplus; thus, effective engagements are generally limited to close-range ambushes or longer-range heavy-weapon area denial. Such a disposition is not expected to be the case indefinitely.
(CUI) Defensive Formations
(S) Enemy forces operating in the Southern Inhabited Shelf actively utilize a mix of natural, artificial, and sometimes pre-existing structures to secure key junctures. High ground is favored and exploited for line of sight, but positions are known to exist at all elevations.
(S) Junk barricades and sandbag bunkers have been seen in use by militias in an attempt to stop the advance of friendly assets, typically located along bottlenecks in urban venues. Trenches have been dug out in some areas, though they have not been seen directly routed to civilian infrastructure.
(S) "Hesco"-style gabions are used at larger installations such as COP Wilson, and are most likely to be left-over fighting positions from Murtazayev loyalists. H-barriers are associated with professional armies, but are trivial to fill with dirt via dump trucks or bulldozers. They are capable of absorbing tremendous ballistic and explosive abuse such as mortar and artillery strikes. Any fighting position constructed with them is likely to be a labyrinth of sandbags with murder holes, and traditionally, such fighting positions are devised asymmetrically to prevent weakness against any one angle of attack. Approaches may also be littered with razorwire or other impedances to footmobile traffic.
(S) COP Winston
(S)
(S)
Above, top: Personnel from 1st PLT/A. Co, 1-506th document extensive electronic and physical intel post-assault of COP Adams in south-west Severkuldzha. Bottom: A number of unusual 5.56 NATO-chambered weapons were discovered at a fighting position during Phase 04-22 of OCS.
(S) Data recovered from COP Adams by friendly forces as well as general SIGINT indicates that a fighting position with an EM signature large enough to be a heavy NWRC outpost is located roughly at [GRIDREF 058024] in south-central Kirov. Given its elevation, the position is suspected of doubling as a relay point for tactical short wave communications that would otherwise struggle to penetrate nearby terrain features. It has been consequently labeled COP Winston.
(S) The position is surrounded by extremely steep approaches on all sides, and--if maintained correctly--will enjoy many hundreds of meters of visibility in any direction except directly north and south. Enemy QRF will likely attempt to utilize the south approach, and it will therefore be expedient to foreclose this route as quickly as possible. IFV and APC-type support vehicles are unlikely to be capable of utilizing any of the approaches during a counter-attack. Long range mountain-to-mountain or valley-to-mountain engagements may remain a threat depending on visibility.
(CUI) Additional Layers of Protection
(S) NWRC are well-supplied through a black market with man-portable, self-propelled, and fixed-position AA systems in both flak and missile-type configurations. Vehicle defilades constructed of dirt or H-barriers are noted to have been used multiple times to limit Coalition munitions to top-down attack or air-based solutions. All major NWRC positions encountered to date have been located within significant AA nets, and all such positions are dotted with crew-served machine gun/grenade launcher systems.
(S) APC, IFV, and MBT-type vehicles are a consistent feature of the defenses of major installations, both in stationary as well as mobile patterns. Mortar and artillery systems are equally-present; cluster munitions have been observed in use as area denial tools. NWRC appears to operate fire bases with Paladin SPG systems to support operations in totally different valleys.
(S) Most pressing of all is that NWRC forces have begun using human shields directly to prevent counter-battery fire from targeting gun emplacements. It is not advisable to use HE or HEAT munitions against installations of unknown composition until it is clear that no such noncombatants are present. On occasions when human shields have been observed, they have been deliberately left in the open next to hardware that would otherwise be vulnerable to friendly IDF or CAS strikes.
(S) Conclusions
(C) Battlefield dynamics are ever-changing. NWRC capability at present may represent a degraded, inefficient, or evolving strategy that has not yet arrived in its final state. Mobility of NWRC and militia elements remains fluid in AOs that are not fully-controlled by any party. There is not yet a shortage of hardware or manpower great enough to blunt the ongoing pattern of dug-in defenses observed by S-2.
(C) Enemy forces show acute knowledge of Coalition use of force multipliers and enablers, as well as ROE limitations. They are projected to maintain a similar pattern of evasion and entrenchment, either until conditions become more generally favorable toward offense or until it is no longer possible to sustain combat losses at a given rate. Nevertheless, despite the successes US forces have had on the attack, it is unlikely that NWRC will solely defend going forwards. Counter-attack actions have recently been reported as beaten-back by various elements of 1 BCT.
Original Classifying Authority: 1-506th S-2 Intelligence
Classified By: CW2 Juan Reynoso, SSG Neil White, SGT Andrew Price
Reason: 1.4(a), (c), (d)
Declassify On:
20470924END REPORT
