Al Breininger's Report

XO RAD 91 & NIOTC Instructor
Republic of Vietnam - 1967-68


Summary of USNI Riverine Warfare Conference April 6 & 7, 2006

The following summary represents the comments, and impressions of Al Breininger after attending the subject conference at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Factual items are preceded by an asterisk (*).


L to R - USMC Major Daniel Wittnam, USMC Captain Paul Stubbs, USN Captain Michael Jordan,
Thomas Cutler, (USN Ret. and Author of "Brown Water, Black Beret") and USMC Major Ivan Monclova.

1) * NECC, the new Naval Expeditionary Combat Command, is a "type" command, not an "operational" command.
    1. This is an important distinction versus our experience with the Mobile Riverine Force – we were an operational command.
    2. NECC is tasked with providing for a Riverine capability integrated with many other specific mission capabilities such as the SeaBee’s, EOD, Inshore Underwater Group, Coastal Patrol, Mine warefare, and even the Mammal operation – the mine detecting dolphins.
    3. All of these capabilities are to be linked and integrated so that when chopped to the operational commander, they will function seamlessly. That is the task and the focus of Adm. Bullard.

2) * The Riverine Component is the only capability under NECC’s umbrella that currently does not exist. All other capabilities, EOD, Seabee’s, Mine, etc. exist.

    1. Thus, the NECC Commander, Adm Bullard, focus is integrating the culture and systems of all the components under his command.
    2. Captain Mike Jordan is the Commodore of the Riverine Group ONE. His current focus is manning, equipping, and training for the riverine capability. His longer range focus will include design of a new boat.
    3. The Riverine Group will have three officers of the rank of Commander leading each of the Riverine Squadrons. *The first Squadron will deploy to Iraq and relieve the Marines in early 2007. They will protect a dam currently protected by the Marines. The immediate focus is to quickly free up the Marines, and thus, longer range plans and thinking are not getting much time or attention.

3) Captain Jordan was very open to comments, while the Admiral was somewhat less so. That is not a criticism, but a fact of the current focus of each person.

    1. Captain Jordan ate lunch with the Vietnam Riverine guys (PBR and MRF) attending the seminar. He listened, asked questions and was very cordial. It is clear he is researching information and learning. While talking about enemy tricks that we experienced, he immediately related to the cable put across the canal in Snoopy’s Nose in the Sept 1967 operation. His comment was "I, read about that".
    2. I would expect that he or the CO of the first unit going in country will contact the MRF when they need our help.
    3. Capt. Jordan expressed interest in attending the MRFA reunion. I suggested he attend the full blown 2007 reunion since the attendance would be much greater, and he will be further down the path of getting past the preliminary organization started.

FOR ALBERT: I believe a formal invitation is in order. It would be great if he could be one of the key note speakers. He will have a lot more to talk about then, and I think the attendees would be very interested in the start up progress of the new force.

      1. Capt Jordan’s background (from the program) is noted below:
bullet"Captain Jordan is currently assigned as the commander of the newly established Riverine Group ONE in Norfolk, VA, where his duties include establishing three riverine squadrons that will support the Global War on Terrorism. As a Navy Special Operations Officer with over 25 years of service and experience in Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), Force Protection, and Mine Warfare, he has commanded an EOD Mobile unit and the Naval School for EOD."
4) * The new riverine capabililty is not planned for "assault" operations. What we did was "force on force" operations which are considered Level 4 operations. The new riverine capability will be configured for up to and including Level 2 operations – small counter insurgency operations.
      1. This is a huge difference!!!! Their mission will be more policing and patrolling and involve Civic Action and Psy Ops stuff. This will occur after any major action and clearing of the area. In terms of the war in Iraq, had they existed, the Riverine unit would not have been used in the original action between March and May 2003. They would have come in to "control the area" once the initial takeover occurred.
      2. *In a recent memo from the Vice CNO, terms such as "shaping", stability operations", and "security cooperation" have been used to describe the non-combat, "non kinetic" missions that the riverine force will be expected to do.
      3. When I heard this, I was starting to think that any new boats built that will look like a police car with an ice cream wagon attached – to hand out goodies to the people.
 

5) My discouragement by some of the contents of paragraph 3 was short lived as it was interesting to hear most of the discussion at the conference talked about the need for armor, armament, protection, air support, etc.

    1. I believe some of the "soft" mission requirements in paragraph 3 above will get their proper focus as they start operating.
    2. They need to be prepared to hammer their way through ambushes and hostile fire.
    3. They will be called upon to a much greater extent to do the Civic Action and Psy Ops operations that our soldiers and sailors did as collateral missions.
    4. The realities of hostile fire will balance the mission.
 

6) So, what is similar and what is different from our experience.

    1. The common thing is the rivers, and the IED’s (we called them mines).
    2. What is different is the mission and the technology.
        1. The mission is patrol and stabilizing the "battle space" – we called this the AO or area of operation.
        2. In the technology bag of tools are things such as remotely controlled boats and airplanes for recon, GPS, Stabilized guns, sophisticated communications, and access to intelligence.
    1. It will be interesting to see how much combat vs non combat they see. The Marine riverine unit was involved as a critical blocking element in the Faluja "assault" the second time around – the one that was successful. The first time, the enemy scramble by – guess what – the water!!!!

 

7) The format of the conference was to review the Navy’s work on Rivers since the time of the Civil War, and note lessons learned. A few common themes came forth:
      1. The Navy has responded to the Riverine need "episodically" – that is, they formed units when needed, and disbanded them when the need went away.
      2. It is hard to believe that this new effort will be treated any differently. The funding just is not there to maintain the capability once it is developed. In fact, the funding for the current effort has not been completed.

        3. Where have we heard this before – in 1966 there was no funding on the Navy side to start the MRF. I think it was Capt Wade Wells personally intimidating others in the Navy that got things moving until they got the funding in place for the next year.

      3. The typical Navy response is to borrow equipment from other units and other services, or quickly procure commercially available units.

        4. Historically they also, "draft" sailors from the fleet. Little attention has been given to a "career" path for sailors going into these special units. It was said that 2 tours in Vietnam was a career killer for officers, because they did not keep pace with their "blue water" counterparts.

        One piece of good news is that there are more volunteers than billets for the new force.

        The new unit sees itself as being around for the "long war" on terror, and will address these issues, but it will be interesting to see what takes place in the next five years. History has a habit of repeating itself.

        The new units plan to have two crews per boat to provide for rest, attrition, etc, and to keep the boats on the water. Crews will most likely be land based.

      4. Control of the river banks is critical for riverine operations. All units in history have had to deal with this. We had the 9th in Vietnam. With the exception of some SEAL ops, the PBR’s did have anyone to work the banks until Sea Lords came into being. Once the 9th was gone, and the boats needed troops to work the banks, the Ruff Puffs, ARVN, and VNMC were needed and used.

        5. I do not believe the new command has come to grips with this yet. But they will eventually as the intensity of their ops increase.

      5. The 50 cal machine gun was unanimously favored by all Vietnam vets from the boats as the weapon of choice. And, it is currently a weapon used today along with the M-60 and some other more fancy gatling type guns using 7.62 ammo.
 

8) Attending the conference with me was:

    Mike Harris
    Nick Miller (Day 1 only)


    Al Breininger and Nick Miller

9) Participating in a pre-meeting the day before the conference with one of the panelists were the following MRF folks:

    Mike Harris
    Nick Miller
    Phil Ferrara
    Al Breininger

10) I was glad I made the decision to attend this conference. It was very educational, and we were able to get some visibility for the MRF and the MRFA.

11) Should there be any questions about this summary or should you desire to talk about points made, you may contact me at:

Email: ALBsail@aol.com

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