DTIC ADA549121: Passing It On: Fighting the Pushtun on Afghanistan's Frontier

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by  Defense Technical Information Center

Fighting the Pushtun
on Afghanistan's
Frontier
General
Sir Andrew Skeen
~
GENERAL SIRANDREW SKEEN, LESTER W. GRAU
1873-1935 &
ROBERT H. BAER,
EDITORS
The terrain and enemy have not changed. This
193 2 book, originally published as a guide for
British lieutenants and captains fighting on the
border with Afghanistan, demonstrates that
improvements in technology - much of it
available to both sides - have had only a modest
impact on fighting in this rugged terrain.
Recommended for leaders serving in infantry
battalions in Afghanistan.
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Passing It On. Fighting the Pushtun on Afghanistan’s Frontier
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Foreign Military Studies Office,731 McClellan Avenue,Fort REPORT NUMBER
Leavenworth,KS,66027
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IntroductIon I
Passing
It On

Fighting the Pushtun
on
Afghanistan’s Frontier
II PassIng It on
IntroductIon III
Passing
It On

Fighting the Pushtun
on
Afghanistan’s Frontier

By General Sir Andrew Skeen (1932)

A Republished and Annotated Edition of
Passing It On: Short Talks on Tribal Fighting
on the North-West Frontier of India
with a Forward and Lessons Learned
Editors
Lester W. Grau & Robert H. Baer
Foreign Military Studies Office
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
Iv PassIng It on
The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and
do not necessarily represent the official policy or position of the
Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the US
Government.
© 2010 Lester W. Grau
Permission granted for unblimited use by the Foreign Military
Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the Maneuver
Center of Excelence, Fort Benning, Georgia.

The Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, is an
open source research organization of the U.S. Army. Founded as the Soviet Army
Studies Office in 1986, it was an innovative program that brought together military
specialists and civilian academics to focus on military and security topics derived
from unclassified, foreign media. The results were unclassified articles and papers
that provided new understandings and broad access to information from a base of
expertise in the U.S. Army, Department of Defense, and foreign and U.S. defense
communities and universities.
Today FMSO maintains this research tradition of special insight and highly
collaborative work. FMSO conducts unclassified research of foreign perspectives
of defense and security issues that are understudied or unconsidered but that are
important for understanding the environments in which the U.S. military operates.
FMSO’s work today is still aimed at publication in unclassified journals and its
research findings are taught in both military and civilian venues in the United States
and around the world. FMSO is organized in the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine
Command under the TRADOC G-2.
Foreign Military Studies Office
731 McClellan Avenue
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
[email protected]
IntroductIon v
Contents
Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VI
Editors’ Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX
________________________________________
Passing It On
By General Sir Andrew Skeen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Contents and Summaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1 - General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 - Still General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 - Introducing Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4 - The Vanguard and the Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5 - The Flank Piquets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6 - The Flank Piquets and the Rear Guard . . . . . . . . 54
7 - Taking Up Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
8 - Taking Up Camp - Enemy Sniping and Assaults . . . 73
9 - Permanent Piquets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10 - When a Column Moves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
11 - Attacks and Withdrawals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
12 - Foraging and Demolition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
To Sum Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
________________________________________
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXV
Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XXXV
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XLII
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XLIV
vI PassIng It on
IntroductIon vII
Foreword

T
he American infantry battalion is now a well-established actor in
the Afghan theater. So why would the Foreign Military Studies Office
and the Maneuver Center of Excellence resurrect a book from
1932 for the leaders of those units? Well, the book is about fighting
Pushtun tribesmen in the remote regions of Afghanistan/Pakistan—an
unchanged battlefield and an opposing force consistent in the difficulties
it has caused for great armies over millennia. This book, originally
published as a guide for British lieutenants and captains, demonstrates
that improvements in technology—much of it available to both sides
—have had only a modest impact on infantry fighting in this rugged
terrain. However, it also demonstrates that the key to enhancing basic
infantry effectiveness is using the terrain effectively, maintaining force
security and understanding the mountain people.
General Sir Andrew Skeen spent decades dealing with this frontier.
His combat experience in the Afghanistan frontier region was extensive,
but he also saw action against the Boxers in China, in Somaliland,
Gallipoli and the trenches of the Western Front in World War I. His
final field posting was as the Chief of the General Staff of the Army
of India. “Passing it on” is about passing on his experience in this
turbulent region to the lieutenants and captains who were then dealing
with the problems of mountain combat against Pushtun tribesmen. His
advice is still relevant to what our soldiers are facing today.
The mission of the Foreign Military Studies Office is to research and
present foreign ideas and perspectives to better understand present and
future problems. Occasionally we visit the past to find those ideas and
perspectives. This 1932 book is not so much a step backwards as the
(re)discovery of a useful map for now and the future. We hope it will be
of value to our readers.
Tom Wilhelm
Director, Foreign Military Studies Office
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
vIII PassIng It on
Editors
Les Grau is a retired infantry Lieutenant Colonel who fought in Vietnam
and trained as a Soviet Foreign Area Officer. He has published over 100
articles on tactical subjects and three books on Afghanistan—The Bear
Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan; The
Other Side of the Mountain: Mujahideen Tactics in the Soviet-Afghan
War (coauthored with Ali A. Jalali); and The Russian General Staff’s
The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost (translated
with Michael Gress). He has a doctoral degree in Military History with
a concentration in Central Asia and South Asia.
Bob Baer is South Asia Analyst (2009) at the Foreign Military Studies
Office, Fort Leavenworth, KS. Bob served as a military contractor,
training Pashtun Levy Security Forces, in the North-West Frontier of
Pakistan (2008). Bob is a graduate of Georgia Military College, and
served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army. He is a graduate of the
Center for Advanced International Studies, University of Miami (MA,
Asian Studies) and holds a Doctorate in Public Administration (DPA,
Public Policy) from Nova Southeastern University. Bob is a registered
professional archaeologist (RPA), with undergraduate and graduate
credentials in archaeology and ancient history from the Universityof
Leicester, UK, and the University of Oxford, UK. Bob has completed
more than 200 archaeological investigations world-wide, the majority of
which were in the underwater environment.