Ambushes and Armour The Irish Rebellion 1919-1921

The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have focussed public attention on ambushes, but this is not a new problem; the Irish Revolution (1916-23) was a war of 'firsts': the first British counterinsurgency after World War I; the first mass use of motorised vehicles for counterinsurgency; the first use of extensive countermobility operations by insurgents; the first time a military force had to 'up-armour' its motor vehicles in response to the insurgent threat; the first time they had to deal with the negative effects of hanging steel plate on cars and trucks; the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) against motor vehicles-in both forms of pressure detonation and command (electric) detonation; the first time an army had to develop doctrine for the use of motor vehicles in a tactical or combat mode. Thus, the IRA exploited the axiom that military forces are at their most vulnerable when on the move. Kautt looks at the development of ambush and counter-ambush doctrine. By disregarding the politics and social issues, as much as possible without losing context and perspective, the focus here is on the military aspects of these operations. Further, the examination of the tactics, rather than the strategies, reveals how the opposing forces functioned 'on the ground'. Soldiers on both sides did not fight according to policies or the stances of politicians, they fought to defeat their enemies and to stay alive. Since this conflict served as a model for both later revolutions as well as counterinsurgent operations, the study offers insight into how ambush and counter-ambush operations worked and developed.