In September 2006, and January 2007 I highlighted a surprising British solution to the guerrilla problem in southern Iraq.

LTC David Labouchere, of the Queen’s Royal Hussars, put all their tanks and AFVs into storage and stripped down his battalion to fighting weight, loaded them all onto Land Rovers and trucks and moved out into the countryside. He left his heavily fortified base, which was a big mortar-magnet, and decided to bar the Iraq-Iran border by constant movement. He seems to have been right.

They get air delivery every day or two of food, water and other expendables, and seem to be very active, since there is no specific patrol pattern.

This is the current British version of “distributed operations.” Rather than cut and paste to create commentary, just go here. There is a long article about this operational style. It’s a unique form of online reading, so juggle around a bit and read about a success story in Iraq. It makes a nice change.

LTC Labouchere is apparently doing with Merlin helicopters what the USMC is hoping to do with their new V-22 Osprey. It’s probably worth noting that the Merlins haven’t taken much fire on the resupply missions.

The Hussars seem to be quite successful at interdicting what little bit of gun smuggling is doing on in Maysan Province, which must annoy Mr Cheney no end.

UPDATE: It's probably also worth noting that the Augusta/Westland Merlin helicopter is one shit of a lot cheaper than the V-22 Osprey, has no annoying handling and teething problems (like frequent crashing) to overcome, and seems to work like a charm in both Northern European winters and Southern Iraqi summers - two temperature extremes that pretty well define the operating envelope of the US Army and US Marine Corps land warfare locales.

The big disadvantage of course is that it suffers from the NIH syndrome, and our buying a couple hundred copies won't make Boeing stockholders happy, which in the long run is far more important than delivering live troops onto an LZ in a timely and safe fashion.