"Honesty Traces" and the Marines in Afghanistan: Hansel and Gretel Were Right

The article's headline caught my eye: "Hansel and Gretel vs. Roadside Bombs." That was intriguing enough to look up, and what I found was an article on United States Marines in Afghanistan.

The Marines' Combat Logistics Battalion 3, based out of Camp Leatherneck in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, had a problem. They'd been driving off-road, to avoid bombs planted by the Taliban. They'd been taking different routes, too, but the Taliban always seemed to know where the trucks would be.

It took quite a few GPS units, maps, and analysis, but they found out that they'd been driving different routes: that tended to converge on a few spots. It wasn't so much careless behavior, as a matter of the terrain. Those were natural bottlenecks, sort of like fords in rivers or the solid ground between marsh and swamp you'll find in parts of Northern Minnesota.

The solution this time was pretty straightforward: take a careful look for bombs already planted, and set up sniper teams to discourage "militants" from planting more.

In this case the problem and the solution are perfectly clear - with 20-20 hindsight. Before someone started tracking the exact routes, I'm not so sure that the convergence on spots in remote areas of Helmand Province was all that obvious.

I've made the point before: The American military makes mistakes, and learns from them. (June 30, 2008)

More-or-less related posts:

• "Army Emergency Relief Scandal: Stockpiling, Hoarding, and 'Never Mind?' "
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• "Abu Ghraib: Abuse and Sexual Humiliation by American Soldiers in the News Again"
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• "All Those 'Poor, Uneducated, Minorities Being Drafted in America!' "
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• "Looting in the News: Rape, Pillage, and the America Way"
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• "Army Report: Big Mistakes in Iraq!"
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• "More - What Else? - Dreadful News from Iraq"
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• " 'The Army is Unraveling' - Just Like Vietnam! "
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• "Tap Dancing Marine Recruiters and Other Threats"
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• "What a Country! Flower Children vs. the U.S. Marines"
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• "Play it Safe: Join the American Armed Forces"
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In the news:

• "Danger Room in Afghanistan: Hansel and Gretel vs. Roadside Bombs"
  Danger Room, Wired (August 21, 2009)