Marines forced to use dummies
April 27, 2005

Baghdad: US marines who suffered the highest casualty rate of any unit in Iraq have revealed that they were so short of soldiers that they used cardboard dummies to fool insurgents into believing they faced more men.

Company E of the First Marine Division dressed the cutouts in shirts and placed them in observation posts to trick rebels into thinking they were manned.

More than one third of the unit's 185 troops were killed or wounded during its six-month tour last year in the insurgent stronghold in Ramadi, west of Falluja, during which it faced 26 gun battles, 90 mortar attacks and nearly 100 homemade bombs.

The deception was revealed on Monday when the marines broke the corps' code of silence to detail the extent of shortages of equipment and manpower which they blame for many of their comrades' deaths.

The marines highlighted the lack of armoured Humvees, the four-wheel-drive vehicles favoured by the US military, which the company said meant they had little protection against roadside bombs.

When the unit arrived, none were fully armoured and the commanders had to find scrap metal to line the sides and bottom of their vehicles.

It was also issued with maps that were several years out of date and showed urbanised areas still to be farmland.

The unit, nicknamed the Magnificent Bastards, said it had only a handful of electronic devices that block the detonation of roadside bombs, which were responsible for the deaths of 13 of 21 deaths.

Telegraph, London

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/04/26/1114462041421.html