Of interest?

[Pak_43]

From the Saturday telegraph..

Paras kill 21 Taliban in fierce fight among alleyways

The first significant encounter between soldiers of the Parachute Regiment and the Taliban involved close-quarters fighting among alleyways and mud buildings.

It was an early indication of the challenges facing British troops recently deployed in southern Afghanistan.

Within 10 seconds of disembarking from their Chinook helicopters outside the village of Nauzad, the troops came under heavy fire from insurgents hidden in houses and behind walls.

As machinegun bullets and rocket-propelled grenades cut through the air, the Paras ran for cover, returning fire only when they could identify the enemy, Major Will Pike, commanding the 100-strong A Company, told the BBC.

During the six-hour battle in northern Helmand province, where 3,300 British troops have been sent in the past six weeks to support Afghan security forces, the Paras killed 21 Taliban militants, rather than the five the Ministry of Defence had earlier reported.

Major Pike said: "We were not going there looking for a fight but to search a compound. The Taliban were very bold. They knew the ground very well - better than we did - and we have respect for the enemy in those terms."

L/Cpl Jonathan Smart described shooting two Taliban fighters after a group approached his section during the engagement last Sunday in which Apache attack helicopters took part.

"I challenged them, they turned their weapons systems on us and we neutralised the threat immediately - meaning we shot and killed them," he said.

Pte Paul Gordon said that one of the problems was in identifying the militants from the local population because they were all in civilian clothes.

The British contingent is part of a Nato force expanding from 9,700 to 16,000 by late July, doubling international troop numbers in the southern region, the heartland of the Taliban.

[frieze]

I'd say that this is primarily of interest in that it demonstrates just how ineffective even a fairly well equipped insurgent force can be when attempting to face an even better trained and equipped adversary. On paper one might assume that an ambush on the men disembarking from helicopters would be fairly successful, but I must assume that the superior training undergone by the British troops greatly reduced the advantages posed by "home ground" cover.

[flamingknives]

I've just seen a BBC report on this and the Paras seemed to be there with vehicles too. At least four or five Landrover WMIKs* were in shot at various times, plus the amount of dust kicked up by the helicopters served as a pretty good visual screen for the deploying troops.

*WMIK = Weapon Mount Installation Kit. Usually a .5 HMG on a ring mount on top and a GPMG (7.62mm) by the front passenger seat. You could probably fit a couple in a Chinook, but there are only thirty-odd Chinooks in the RAF.

[Fly Pusher]

The thing that struck me about this report was that the battle lasted 6 hours.

My underrstanding is that this kind of small scale encounter is what CMSF is designed to model. But a 360 turn scenario strikes me a something strictly for the hard core fringe of wargaming aficionados.

Was there ever any word from on high regarding variable trun lengths ?

[flamingknives]

It sounds like what the CMX1 operations were meant to represent. Of the six hours, the fighting and tactical movement would only represent a small part.

And there are only 6 Chinooks in Afghanistan.

[Dave H]

I am left to assume from the article that British casualties were zero. The Taliban caused no deaths, no wounds, no MIA after an ambush and a six-hour firefight, while losing 21 killed in return? Were these just particularly incompetent Taliban?

[flamingknives]

Actually, the Paras lost one KIA, two seriously injured.

Linky

[flamingknives]

More linky

[Imperial Grunt]

Interesting video. Gosh the Taliban are just like the insurgents in Iraq, no matter now many cockroaches you stamp out one day, the next morning when the lights get flipped on, you see even more scurrying around!

Fortunately, the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgents are not that well trained, especially to western standards. A disclipined force that exploits its combined arms capabilities will beat a mob with guns just about every time, even if that mob is fanatic and is fighting on its home turf.

My condolencses to the Paras for thier KIA. Keep up the good fight.

Semper Fi

[Peter Cairns]

The length of time that engagements last isn't unreasonable, and if you look at recent battles like Goose green in the Falklands you see similiar day long battles with relatively few casualties.

Thats because because of firepower etc, most people crawl or are in cover most of the time. I suspect that it would have been a lot shorter if the Paras had let the Apaches open up or called in harriers, but of course that could have ment dozens of civilian casualties.

If in CM:SF scenarios casualties become a major factor and potentially you lose points for hitting unoccupied buildings or in later modules civilians, then people will have to learn to fight cautiously without using all the firepower at their disposal.

Peter.

[Fly Pusher]

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

The length of time that engagements last isn't unreasonable, and if you look at recent battles like Goose green in the Falklands you see similiar day long battles with relatively few casualties.

Peter.

I am not suggesting that its unreasonable at all. Indeed, as already pointed out, it no doubt reflects the profesionalism of the troops involved. They took their time to do it right without endangering non-combatants any more than absolutely necessary.

Rather I am wondering how such long time spans can be reasonably, yet accurately, represented in a simulation such as CMSF.

This is why I was asking about 'variable turns'. When not much is happening turns could last 5 min (for example) while at frenetic times of intense action they may only last 20-30 seconds. In this scheme it would be how much thats going on that would determine the turn length (within limits).

This is all no doubt set in stone by now. Its just that I hadnt noticed any 'official' comment. Although its certainly possible that I missed this.

Just a thought...

[Dave H]

Thanks for the links. I thought it was odd that an ambush resulted in such a one-sided affair implied in the initial post. From the video it didn't look like the Taliban (or Afghans or terrorists or patriots or whoever) chose a location with very many escape routes from the scene of the firefight. Survival of the fittest eliminated the dumb/inexperienced/unlucky soldiers and the rest lived to fight another day. Meanwhile at least 22 mothers lost their precious sons; others were seriously wounded; and all of that blood was shed for exactly what result? Madness.

[Imperial Grunt]

More bug hunting going on over there:

Large Afghan Offensive Begins

Associated Press | June 14, 2006

MUSA QALA, Afghanistan - The U.S.-led coalition is unleashing more than 11,000 troops to attack militants in the southern mountains of Afghanistan, the biggest offensive since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The push starting Thursday by U.S., British, Canadian and Afghan troops aims to squeeze Taliban fighters in four volatile provinces. It will focus on southern Uruzgan and northeastern Helmand, where the military says most of the forces are massed.

The offensive comes amid Afghan and coalition efforts to curb the fiercest Taliban-led violence since the hard-line Islamic government was toppled for harboring Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The U.S. military announced Wednesday that an American Soldier was killed in Helmand's Musa Qala district Tuesday after his logistics patrol came under rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire attack. Another coalition soldier was also killed in combat in the eastern Kunar region.

The force of more than 11,000 troops is by far the largest deployed in Afghanistan for one operation since the 2001 invasion. Previous offensives in the country have involved several thousand soldiers.

Maj. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, U.S. operational commander in Afghanistan, said coalition and Afghan troops would attack "Taliban enemy sanctuary or safe haven areas" in Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.

"Right now ... they'll be in one area, they'll move out of that area, they'll conduct an attack in another area, then move back to a safe haven," he said last week in an interview at Bagram, the U.S. military headquarters north of Kabul.

"This is our approach to put simultaneous pressure on the enemy's networks, to cause their leaders to make mistakes, and to attack those leaders," Freakley said. He spoke to The Associated Press ahead of an AP embed with the military in Helmand province, where the U.S. is establishing a new forward operating base in support of the offensive.

The offensive, called Operation Mountain Thrust, began May 15 with attacks on Taliban command and control and support networks. Mid-May marked a sharp increase in firefights between militants and coalition forces.

According to U.S. military and Afghan figures, about 550 people, mostly militants, have been killed since mid-May in the fiercest fighting since the ouster of the Taliban.

The fighting included up to 200 Taliban rebels attacking Musa Qala before fleeing from hundreds of coalition and Afghan forces.

Conditions permitting, Thursday will mark what the military is calling the start of major and decisive anti-Taliban operations lasting through the summer. Reconstruction projects will also play a major role in Mountain Thrust.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick said he could not recall a bigger military operation in Afghanistan in the past four years.

"This is a big operation - 10,000 soldiers over the course of a month. But this is not a beach landing," he said. "I can't say there will be a major battle on (June) 15, but if there isn't, there will be in the days following that."

Operation Mountain Thrust will involve about 2,300 U.S. conventional and special forces, 3,300 British troops, 2,200 Canadians, about 3,500 Afghan soldiers and air support troops, Freakley said. There will also be coalition air support.

Some American forces will rotate out once the operation is over at the end of the summer, while the British and Canadians will stay on.

The offensive, which the military says it has been planning for 18 months, coincides with a surge in militant attacks in the southern and eastern provinces near the border with Pakistan, where Afghan authorities have little or no presence.

Another major offensive, Operation Mountain Lion, involved 2,500 U.S. and Afghan troops. It was launched in April in eastern Kunar province, and the reconstruction phase of that operation is continuing, Freakley said.

But the Taliban is the strongest in the south.

Since the defeat of the Taliban regime in late 2001, the militants have gained strength, Fitzpatrick said. "I think this summer the Taliban is stronger than they've been in years," he said.

Militants have launched more suicide attacks against coalition troops in recent months, and staged nighttime attacks on government headquarters in small villages. The Taliban campaign, officials said, is intended to convince villagers the government cannot provide security, as well as to test NATO forces moving into the area.

Some of the recent spike in fighting can be attributed to the fact that there are now many more troops in the south, military officials said.

"A year ago there was one infantry company in Helmand. Now there (are) 3,300 British," Freakley said. "The enemy was doing whatever they wanted. Now we're going into areas we haven't been in before, and now there's a backlash."

Maj. Geoff Catlett, an operational planner for Operation Mountain Thrust, said coalition and Afghan forces would pressure Taliban militants in western Uruzgan and northeast Helmand.

Just north of there, the Hazara people - a rival tribe to the ethnic Pashtuns, from which the Taliban draws its fighters - will provide a "tribal backstop" for the coalition.

Col. Michael Coss, chief of military operations at Bagram, said Mountain Thrust would be conducted with the Afghan army to accelerate Afghan soldiers' development and encourage villagers' acceptance of the coalition presence.

Mountain Thrust also will help establish a permanent Afghan army presence in the south and provide security for aid groups, Coss said.

Another goal is to set the conditions for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, which takes command in Afghanistan from the U.S.-led coalition in late July or early August. The NATO force will have some 6,000 troops stationed permanently in the south, double the number the coalition has had in the region in recent years.

Mountain Thrust will also extend the Afghan government into the provinces, Catlett said, adding that 60 percent of Operation Mountain Thrust would be construction projects and humanitarian work.

"It's not in any way, shape or form about killing Taliban. We could kill Taliban all year," Catlett said. "The only thing that matters is building a credible, responsive government that meets the people's needs."

[Pak_43]

I'd say that this is primarily of interest in that it demonstrates just how ineffective even a fairly well equipped insurgent force can be when attempting to face an even better trained and equipped adversary. On paper one might assume that an ambush on the men disembarking from helicopters would be fairly successful,

and

If in CM:SF scenarios casualties become a major factor and potentially you lose points for hitting unoccupied buildings or in later modules civilians, then people will have to learn to fight cautiously without using all the firepower at their disposal.

Were precisely the 2 conclusions I drew from the report also...

[Tagwyn]

If you are taking fire from "occupied/unoccupied buildings" you blow the heck out of them. Let the civilians worry about themselves. Tag

[flamingknives]

Certainly, if you're a mono-synaptic imbecile with no understanding of strategy or politics and a pathological desire to disobey orders.

[Sivodsi]

Referring to your opponents as 'bugs' is precisely the kind of thinking that allows incidents like this

to take place. Take that you bugs!

Feel better now?

Its the presence of attitudes like this that really turns me off the whole concept of CMSF. I'll stick to WWII where at least the facade of history allows some kind of shield to the brute realities of war.

[Imperial Grunt]

The incident in Haditha is under investigation, and those Marines who crossed the line will be punished, harshly. The Corps has a pretty good record of holding people accountable for all that they do or fail to do.

Here are some words I borrowed in response to a political cartoon in a paper in Arizona.

This desecration of the Marine Corps Emblem appeared in Wednesday, June 7th edition of the Arizona Republic as a political cartoon. I sent the following e-mail to the editor of the Republic this morning:

To whom it may concern:

In response to Steve Benson's political cartoon desecrating the Marine Corps Emblem, and prejudging the Marines currently under investigation, but not charged with any crimes. I would like to make the following comments regarding the battle history of the United States Marine Corps.

The United States Marine Corps has faithfully defended the interests of the people of the United States in every climate and place since November 10, 1775. Every part of the Marine dress blue uniform is steeped in tradition, from the eagle, globe and anchor, the stock collar, the red stripe on officer and NCO trousers legs honors the blood of Marines spilled in combat. I am personally incensed by the publication of Mr. Benson's cartoon slandering our Corps emblem and the memory of Marines that paid the ultimate price with their lives.

I will be forwarding a copy of the “CARTOON” to Col. Walter Ford, Editor of Leatherneck magazine, The Arizona American Legion magazine and to the VFW and DAV.

Semper Fidelis,

Cpl. James Crossin 0311

"I" Co., 3rd Bn., 5th Marine Regiment

USMC 1959/1965, Fratres Aeterni

I followed it up with another e-mail tonight of this article I received from Moon that appeared in the June 6th LA Times:

Marines in Iraq: The warriors' way

They maintain a monastic devotion to making right choices and sparing

innocents amid the chaos of Iraq, says a former officer.

By David J. Danelo

DAVID J. DANELO, a former Marine officer and Iraq war veteran, is the author

of "Blood Stripes: The Grunt's View of the War in Iraq."

June 6, 2006

ON APRIL 6, 2004, Cpl. Jason Howell, a Marine squad leader who had arrived

in Iraq three weeks before, was enduring his baptism of fire in what later

became known as the "first battle of Fallouja." Howell, who had not eaten in

18 hours or slept in 36, was running on nothing but adrenaline. His

dehydrated spittle, caked around the side of his mouth, was dirty white.

Kneeling on a roof, he saw a flash of movement. An Iraqi child put his face

out the window.

Exhausted, Howell found himself unable to process the Arabic word he had

learned for "stop." Without thinking, he screamed. The child pulled the

curtains as Howell automatically raised his weapon to shoot. Then Howell

blinked. An instant later, clarity returned to his thoughts. The corporal,

who was in his first of what would become many days of combat, had almost

shot an innocent.

"I don't know exactly why I didn't pull the trigger," said Howell, who now

serves with the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. "It all happened so fast.

It was a combination of training, instinct and luck."

As the furor grows over allegations that Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians

last November - including women and children - the origins of Howell's

discipline are worth examining.

The Corps is the smallest of the United States' military services, and it

also has the highest enlisted-to-officer ratio (about 10 to 1). Because of

this, a much higher level of responsibility is placed on corporals and

sergeants, or noncommissioned officers. In each Marine infantry battalion,

which is the primary combat element, an average of 60 noncommissioned

officers lead squads or a unit of similar size. As squad leaders, they

assume responsibility for the lives - and split-second decisions - of about

a dozen men.

Marines are legendary for their monastic devotion to the warrior ideal. The

mottos inked on their bodies - Death Before Dishonor, Make Peace or Die,

Always Faithful - function as physical scriptures for their choice of

religion, like scapulars, phylacteries or "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets.

The ancient Spartans, who sacrificed at the battle of Thermopylae to defend

the Greeks from the Persian onslaught, are venerated as saints within the

Corps. The Spartan Way is a stoic faith.

SINCE THE FALL of 2001, 26 active duty and nine Marine Reserve infantry

battalions have rotated into and out of Afghanistan and Iraq as units for

seven-month tours of duty. As new recruits join a battalion, seasoned

noncommissioned officers either gain rank toward senior billets or leave the

Corps for civilian life. Although the exact numbers remain classified

information, unit casualty reports suggest that about 50 separate rotations

of Marine infantry battalions have been tested in combat over the last four

years.

Using those statistics as a bare minimum, at least 3,000 corporals and

sergeants have served combat tours as infantry squad leaders. Not to mention

hundreds more who cut their teeth as combat replacements, convoy security

escorts, translators, intelligence collectors or instructors for the new

Iraqi army. When the histories are written, we will learn that the exact

number of young Marines thrust into positions of leadership - amid an

international media spotlight - is actually much higher.

Several Marines have already been convicted in the court of public opinion

in the Haditha case. As military investigators evaluate these allegations,

those on the sidelines should avoid castigation of an entire system because

of the errors of a few. Consider the rush to judgment of 2nd Lt. Ilario G.

Pantano, who was charged with murder at an April 2004 checkpoint shooting,

or the nameless Marine in a Fallouja mosque who was seen on video killing an

insurgent thought to have been booby-trapped. Both were eventually

exonerated of all charges.

Responsible critics of the Iraq war say that we misappropriated U.S.

military resources in making an unnecessary choice to topple Saddam

Hussein's regime, a choice that has plunged young soldiers and Marines into

the amorality of a protracted counterinsurgency. But placing too close an

association on the Haditha massacre with the war's politics ignores the

thousands of troops who have navigated the chaos and still made the right

decisions.

Accuracy in the application of deadly force is the foundational creed for

any who protect and defend their society. Discerning combatant from innocent

is the greatest challenge for all who have engaged in this kind of war. Like

spiritual perfection, the warrior ideal is often an impossible thing to

fully achieve. But as we condemn the handful who have backslid in their

pursuit of the Spartan Way, we should not forget to esteem the thousands

who, like Cpl. Jason Howell, have kept their honor clean amid Iraq's

insanity.

And hunting insurgents is still like squishing bugs...

[Tagwyn]

It doesn't take a Phd in rocket science to know that in combat, if you are fired upon, you fire back until the enemy fire stops. Sure, no Americal soldier would intentionally harm a non-combatant, but when the enemy has no honor and is dressed like a civilian, his/her chances in a combat zone are very good he/she will be killed. Even a cretin like flamingknives (what a malaprop) knows better. War is not a boy scout pic-nic. There are only the quick and the dead. Two American soldiers captured and tortured in the sand box last week were horrible and brutally killed. Message? Don't be taken alive by these semi-humans. Lock on auto and sweep the field until you are dead. Save a bullet for yourself. Bugs are better than insurgents/jihadists/terrorists. When you are firing artillery or dropping bombs from a strategic war fighting platform, you are going to kill "innocents!" If you saw Nazi troops bathing on a beach - you machined gun the bastards until they were dead. They surrender or they die, and you don't really care which. Tag

[flamingknives]

I understand that civilian casualties will happen in war, but that's still a world away from unrestricted force.

Western armies have rules of engagement that restrict the amount of force they are permitted to use and these are in place for a reason, especially when fighting insurgents.

Vietnam showed how uncontrolled tactical firepower could win you battles but lose the war, costing more of your soldiers in the process. Interestingly, on the other hand, the excessive control on strategic firepower in that theatre is probably as important a factor in the loss.

Lock on auto and sweep the field until you are dead. Save a bullet for yourself

What is this, some kind of bad war fiction? Quite apart from the standard US rifle not having an automatic setting, it's not a very good use of firepower.

The trouble with denigrating the insurgents is that it becomes too easy to associate them with the general population, at which point COIN ops become a great deal more difficult because you've suddenly got a much larger hostile contingent. What then, kill them all?

[Imperial Grunt]

Here is an update on Somalia...another possible for a CM:SF setting, with scenarios utilizing the forces of many nations.

Foreign intervention in Somalia?

By Rob Crilly | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

NAIROBI, KENYA

The rapid rise of Somalia's Islamist militias has prompted a flurry of diplomatic efforts to stabilize the troubled country in the Horn of Africa.

Earlier this week, the African Union and Western diplomats decided to send officials to Somalia to assess the possibility of deploying a peacekeeping force to a country ripped apart by 15 years of anarchy. That has the backing of President Abdullahi Yusuf, head of Somalia's virtually impotent transitional government, who flew to Ethiopia Tuesday to demand speedy intervention.

Regional powers support intervention out of fear of an Islamic state on their doorsteps, while Western governments are worried the country could become a haven for terrorists.

But rather than promote stability, the move could inflame feelings in the newly dominant Islamic courts movement, which has everything to lose by foreign intervention.

Its leaders say there is no need to invite peacekeepers when Islamist militias have succeeded in pacifying Mogadishu, one of the most dangerous cities on the planet.

"Any sort of AU intervention - which would most likely be a cover for Ethiopian intervention - is most likely to be highly divisive and is likely to derail any attempt at peaceful negotiation between the government and the courts," says Sulieman Baldo, Africa program director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "The [islamist] courts will be very hostile to any sort of Ethiopian intervention in Somalia."

Ethiopian troops have previously supported President Yusuf in his home state of Puntland where he held off an Islamist challenge during the 1990s. Somalia's neighbor is also thought to have designs on its land.

For the past two weeks, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who heads the Islamic Courts Union, has insisted to the watching world that his network of sharia courts - which has imposed strict Islamic law, shut down cinemas, and banned people from celebrating New Year's - has no links to Al Qaeda and has no plans to turn Somalia into an Islamic state.

But at the same time, his militias have swept out of Mogadishu conquering a huge swath of Somalia, imposing sharia law on the strategic town of Jowhar and traveling almost up to the border with Ethiopia.

The courts are the closest thing to a central government the country has seen since President Siad Barre fled in 1991. After his departure, Somalia gradually split into a series of personal fiefdoms administered by a motley combination of gangsters and thugs known as warlords.

But the rise of the Islamic courts and their militias has ousted the warlords from Mogadishu, where they were allegedly receiving cash from the United States to prevent Al Qaeda from making inroads.

Militias loyal to Sheikh Ahmed are now positioned about 40 miles from the town of Baidoa, where the country's transitional government has sat for four months since being formed in neighboring Kenya.

Earlier this month, its parliament voted to endorse Yusuf's call for peacekeepers to guarantee the survival of the government.

That vote was quickly followed by accusations from the Islamic courts that Ethiopia had sent 300 soldiers across the border to bolster its ally, Yusuf. The charges are denied by Ethiopia, although it is well known that small numbers of Ethiopian troops regularly criss-cross the border as part of its own defenses.

For now, the presence of peacekeepers would also violate an arms embargo imposed by the United Nations on all sides.

Lifting it, says Lt. Col. Harjit Kelley, a consultant to the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia, would risk enflaming an already volatile situation by legalizing the flow of guns and ammunition into the country.

He adds that the Islamic courts had strong backing from people living in towns under their control, and that the government, which has the support of much of the international community, has no option but to open a dialogue.

However, Yusuf has previously ruled out talks with the Islamic courts' leadership unless they meet three conditions: withdraw their militias to Mogadishu, recognize his government, and disarm.

Colonel Kelley doubts the Islamists will agree to those conditions, and says Yusuf has next to no leverage over the courts.

"The Islamic courts have the infrastructure, the command and control, that has [allowed them to] take the capital and other towns and then, more important, to hold on to them, so they are a big threat to the TFG," says Kelley.

"The TFG's best chance is to offer them commanding positions - with some real responsibility - in the government."

For now, there is peace in Mogadishu, but no one doubts that much work remains to rebuild the failed state.

Earlier this week, the United Nations' World Food Programme and UNICEF warned that the recent fighting and years of drought had pushed Somalis to their limit, creating the highest rates of malnutrition seen in years.

Mahamud Hassan Ali, the mayor of Mogadishu, says the West had already intervened in his city, funding the warlords and exacerbating the conflict.

Now, he says, it is time for the outside world to help rebuild it.

"My appeal is that the taxes of the world are no longer used for destruction, but instead used to make a difference to the lives of our people."

[Imperial Grunt]

The Asia-Pacific region has alot of potential for scenarios as well. Here is a pic of an Aussie soldier in East Timor.

[Imperial Grunt]

Aussie Blackhawks in action:

[Tagwyn]

Hidingknives: What you say is largely true. What I said is true also. If the enemy uses innocents as hostages, we do our very best to avoid hurting them, but not to the extent you suggest. Wake up!! This is a WAR. Win, lose or die!! It is right for us to do this; wrong not to do this. Take the gloves off and set up curfews in troubled areas and shoot to kill all violators. It is nuts to continue to set up our troops as targets for despicable jihadists and terrorists. Defending Afganistan and Iraq from enemies of freedom is worth whatever losses we sustain. So is defending our border from sneak-across snakes. What do you liberal yahoos not understand about this? Wake up fools or start learning to kneel to the East!! Tag

[flamingknives]

Well, as a liberal yahoo, I'd say that what I don't understand is how recklessly unleashing the firepower at our disposal is sensible when we don't have the manpower to properly secure the area against backlash against heavy-handedness.

Curfew is all very well, but we simply do not have the forces at our disposal to enforce it. Thus people slip through, people with good reason to violate curfew are shot while criminals get through, and it does nothing but antagonise the population. Thus public hostility stops us finding the real bad guys and puts us in conflict with the people we were trying to help in the first place.