Post Situation X Defensive Tactics For Dummies

Originally posted by northwolf
On a general base for a 3-8 men section, unless you know that you are aproaching hostiles, use a file formation with 20-50m in between the troopers. It's 2-times faster than arrowhead or line. Plus it's the hardest to detect.

File formations are very vulnerable to the front. We really only use them for tracks/roads. Arrowhead offers better command and control in the open combined with excellent all round firepower on tap. It makes life a lot easier to form an extended line in an advance to contact or in case of enemy fire from the front.I also don't understand the rationale for your statement file it is twice as fast as arrowhead. I've never experienced this.

As for 20-50m spacing in a file formation, that leaves between 160 and 400m between front man and tail end charlie. This could be a disaster if there was a contact front. The front few blokes are effectively on their own as the rest of the section tries to advance (under fire) to a position where they can support. I know that you have experience in winter warfare, so maybe this has a bearing on your choice.

I love hearing other forces' ways and means of doing things. From reading previous posts I suspect you have plenty of experience in this field and I know you're not some kind of wannabe. I look forward to your posts on how you overcome these problems.

These procedures are for forrest recon ops and Finnish forrest is a nasty place to fight compared to those in Central Europe. Visibility is low, max 150m and at most places you can't effectively hit opponents at 50m. This leads to the fact that the men following the point at 50m are actually not under enemy fire and free to flank the enemy. Allso as we're trained to recon against attacking Russian troops, most of time i'd fall back when encountering enemy fire. Russians tend not to operate in less than comppany strong units. 6 rifles (a squad without the APC crew) versus a mechanized company isn't really a situation you want to be in.

As for the speed issue, try to spread a 50-150m wide line into a thick forrest and keep the formation while moving. You'll notice that someone in the formation is allways in difficoult terrain and slows everyone down. Now if you're in a line the point man picks the fastest route around the trees and bushes and you can keep up the speed of the fastest man of the line/arrowhead instead of the slowest (this implies to the routes that men have to travel, not the physical fitness)

And of course if there is snow, plowing your own route is very tiring. But in line you can make a man move 5/6 of time in a allready opened path. This ups the speed 3-4 times.

Feel free to ask if you don't understand, these are hard things to translate into a forreign language.

Ps. an image from Finnish forrest might explain some issues

In my previous posts I was talking about open ground, not forests. Arrowhead is not useful at all in enclosed spaces, so file would be more suitable.

I still can't get my head around the 50m spacing. We work as 8 man dismounted sections as standard. With spacing of around the 15m mark we are able to mutually support each other, allowing us to consolidate our position quickly, withdraw or attack as a single, heavily armed unit. This doesn't leave a couple of guys to try to shoot their way out of a heavy firefight while the rest of the section move several hundred metres into a position through thick forest to provide support.

We can still break into charlie or delta fireteams, each operating independently of each other. Indeed, this is how we approach flank attacks. Each team has 2 rifles (one with a grenade launcher), a Light Support Weapon (LSW) and a Minimi (LMG). This allows it to act independently while still able to provide a decent amount of firepower.

I'm sure you make your methods work for you. It's good to see the way infantry tactics adapt to different doctorines. How do you move around open spaces? Perhapse you could give the next chapter on how to move a large group of untrained individuals easily in woods and forests?

Cheers northwolf.

The tactic i wrote about is specifically designed and tested for 3-8 men without heavy weapons (ie. only rifles) expecting an encounter with professional soldiers. So if the enemy sees the point man first the point man dies. Not a nice thing, but that's the way it goes. It's just about minimizing losses. And a recon team in our conditions is allways heavily outgunned (hell i spent most of my time moving with 2 or 3 rifles in a team, nearest friendly troops were kilometers away). Paddy do you see my logic in this? And this situation might very well be a similar to a post sitX situation while attempting to avoid military...

In open ground we move in either dual staggered line (infantry platoon and larger formations) or in Diamond (Single squad). Allso it depends if we are attacking or attempting to move undetected.

As for moving untrained civilians (or any larger formations) in woods. Key is that you split your force. Half of your trained members should protect the flanks and half should scout out a route. main body should stay put as the scouts clear a route. Cover a mile with the scouts, then send a word for the main body to move and lead to scouts a mile further... it's slow but at least you minimize the risks and allow the untrained members to keep up. And some of your men will have to move twice the distance unless you have radios (and you can trust that no one has ELINT in the region).

DeusEx, I must inquire, when are you going to update? I am actively awaiting a continuation of your guide.

Cheers.

Alright, nuggets. Last lesson by myself, as it starts getting advanced in a hurry. Before I start, if you're in any way wishing to understand the nature of real-world interactions between certain kinds of cover and high-velocity lead, take a look at the Box O' Truth site. Eye-opening stuff.

To continue, this lecture will be on Defensive Layups. This doesn't cover bunkers or anything decent, so pay attention. The information is basic but may save lives.

In looking for a place to layup for an extended rest or camp for the night, your primary concern is defensibility. Yes, concealment is super-fantastic, but if things go sideways, all the concealment in the world won't save you and your crunchies if your position is in a box canyon and you get jumped. Things to look for go in this order: high ground, cover, concealment, difficulty of access.

For those that don't know the difference, CONCEALMENT conceals you. COVER protects you and your favorite arteries. Concealment is considerably less desirable than cover, as concealment can be made very easily, while cover takes a lot of Goddamn work. SO, you want a natural high spot, and some sort of cover. Once you spot it, make a path past it, and loop back. If you're traveling with a a section, your trail will be pretty clear to most people. Then again, most people will be paying more attention to the tracks than the surroundings, in order not to lose you. Hopefully, any concealment you can make will hide your encampment well enough so that they either miss you entirely (unlikely) or you can spot them and deliver a punishing flanking ambush. how's that, you say? Well, if they're following you single file like you traveled, they'll be in a nice line as they pass, making for easy targets. Kickass.

Alright, so you did your little U-turn, and you're at your campsite. Now what? Well, your first order of business is setting up shell scrapes. Shell scrapes are about three meters long by about four feet deep. Good enough to give good cover to most people, they take an hour to make if you're a lazy pump. Make a shell scrape for every second pair of people in your encampment, with a third facing the trail. Conceal your accommodations, and set the watch.

Setting the watch is a fairly simple experience. One third of people is racking out, one third is on watch - that means awake, alert, and either on patrol around the encampment or in their scrapes. Definitely keep everyone in the important shell scrapes in there, in fireteams. You'll keep each other awake. One third is on Quick Reaction Force, which means they are asleep but on notice to move in three minutes. Less is preferable, but hey. You're not soldiers. I don't expect the world. The QRF is there for the tasks which require leaving the encampment, for example if in the dead of night you hear a child crying, you might send the QRF out to check it out. This is rotated as follows every three hours: Watch, rest, QRF. Everyone gets a turn on the line, and everyone gets to sleep, with any luck. A piece of advice: if anything seems the least bit suspicious, raise the alarm, in keeping with the below advice if things aren't sideways already. It's far better to get no sleep than to be murdered with a rock while you sleep, right?

The final piece to the layup is discipline. Remember, you're under threat. While setting up, have a third of your crunchies on watch. Always, always have a watch while you're doing anything from set up to take down. Discipline also applies to light and noise, especially at night. Keep it quiet as physically at all times, and use as little light as possible at night. NEVER, EVER use white light. At night, it is your worst enemy. It takes a second of white light to destroy your night vision, and fifteen minutes to get it back. If you ABSOLUTELY need to use light, make sure it is covered up (in your tent, under a poncho, etc.) and make sure it is red. Red light is less harmful to your vision, and slightly harder to see at night.

That is all I have for now. If Paddy or the Finn feel like adding anything, go wild within reason.

Good hunting, troops. Carry on.

DE

DE
It seems that Canadian military has pretty much the same doctrines as Finnish.

I strongly recommend that you think twice before digging anything, if you're not planning to stay put for a longer time. Digging makes a lot of noice and it leaves evidence behind that you were there... It is a very sound practise for a military unit near/infront of the frontline, but unless you have a threath of artillery/mortar fire, i don't see it as a must. And if you plan on staying put, you can allways dig in real foxholes so that you can defend the position.

And when planning a route to a camp, make sure that you improvise a slightly different setup every time and avoid doing the exact u-turn trick, lots of people are very familiar with it. IMPROVISE, it will save your life

El Finn, this is more a basic guide for those who have a hard time telling trees apart, people who really don't know what's going on. By all means, improvise, be tricky. I suggest digging in just because it'll make you safer, and improve morale. It's already pretty easy to track a group of n00bs, especially ten or more. If someone really is tracking you (re: Eaters), it'll be a fight eventually. That's when you really want those shell scrapes.

DE

I think that if it really came down to it, the secret is movement and speed. Use all daylight hours to create distance/angles/deceptions (if you know how), and rest as much as possible at night. By all means have a roaming stag (direction of enemy threat probably won't be known), but ensure that the old/young/infirm get plenty of rest. Until you get to a 'secure' location, movement is the key. I know that the military among you will be saying 'do your movement at night', but try moving any amount of untrained people through a hostile environment in the dark, and you will see the cluster it becomes.

Digging in etc may be a good tactic for an infantry platoon in a harbour area, but it needs to be weighed up against the need for untrained people to rest in a high-speed, high-stress situation. Without rest, these people will very quickly become liabilities. It is up to the experienced bods to ensure that LUPs are in secure areas and that area security is up to scratch.

Breaking the unit into smaller teams with an experienced guy in charge of each team will make things alot easier. Keep the larger group together for the main part. If things go bad, the smaller groups will rally together and have a greater chance of escape. If pre-arranged rally points are arranged in advanced, then the smaller groups can reorganise and carry on later.

Well, I hoped my stag arrangement would allow for sufficient rest. I still say shell scrapes are the way to go, as while you can only move as fast as the slowest member of your party, the Eaters or other hostile forces will be comprised entirely of persons in better shape than you. Speed and violence is key, so book it hard during broad daylight. Even dawn and dusk are kinda sketchy to be moving untrained folks about. Twelve hours on, twelve hours off.

DE

The main reasoning behind digging in is to provide a degree of cover from indirect and direct weapons fire. It allows you to have some cover while you mount defensive fire. As I have stated this is a fine idea for dismounted infantry who are well versed in platoon tactics and can create a useful defensive fire pattern, but not much use to a group of untrained individuals with minimal armaments.

All they will do is get into their scrapes, climb up their own arses and wait for the better armed and fitter hunter force to come and eat them. Digging in will encourage the untrained people to stay put - not a good idea.

My training in the Air Force was mostly providing security/defense for logistics and convoys not recce/infiltration tactics but I picked up few tactics from working with the 82nd Airborne while at Fort Bragg.

Never allow yourself to be silhouetted against your background especially when crossing over hills/ridges. Never cross at the peak of ridges Always travel parallel to the ridge and below it.

Even with the wimpy 5.56mm NATO round, always aim for the body center mass when possible. You could miss the aimpoint by 6-8"(very possible at 300m) but still hit and permanently disable an opponent.

When standing sentry, do it from shadow and don't move around much. Movement = noise. Keep the wind at your back. Always expect attack from the downwind direction at night. That's where sneaky people are trained to attack from for obvious reasons.

Vehicle convoys are just movements on wheels. Ambushes happen at choke points like crossroads and bridges. Lone vehicles are dead meat.

Never walk when you can ride into battle. The US Army is now looking into adding the Vietnamese's secret weapon, the bicycle, into the inventory. A soldier can cover 20 miles cross country on bike in 3 hours and be in better shape to fight than traveling the same distance on foot in 4-5 hours and being dead tired.

I really suggest downloading or purchasing the US Army FM 31-20. It's a gold mine for small unit tactics against larger forces.

Hello, I'm Deus and if you don't know me already, you're numb from the shoulders up. I'll be teaching basic command and control today.

Firstly, there are ratios that must be observed and maintained. Firstly, for every five men, there much be a corporal or master corporal to command them. A single leader is manageable for three to five people, and makes the decisions for the group without question (though with advice). One we reach the section level, a sergeant should be elected, with the master corporal as his XO (executive officer). Two sections is almost a damn platoon, and as such, once you reach two sections in strength, you should start forming a headquarters. This will be the topic of the better part of the lecture.

At it's simplest and sketchiest, your headquarters unit will be formed of a free-floating officer/chieftain/warlord, who will give instructions and objectives in a direct manner to the sergeants, who will then achieve the objectives as they see fit. The LT (officer-type) shouldn't be micromanaging things, it's not his job. For example, you come into contact with an enemy force. The LT will say whether you stand and fight, or run away. Unless he has something specific in mind, he should leave it up to his sergeants to actually run the attack. It'll save confusion.

Some possible specialists for your HQ unit include:

XO: Since the HQ will most likely be at the rear as a guard for the children and elderly, it would behoove you to select an XO from the most experienced non-fighters to act as an advisor and secondary leader to limit the load on the CO. Also, should the CO get shortened by a head, he can readily assume command.

Signaler: Simple enough, someone to sort out all the comms gibberish, should you have comms. If might be handheld radios or 55's, but it's good to have someone to sift through the signals, try and spy on enemy comms or run countermeasures on such. A younger member who you would think would make a poor fighter fits perfectly into this role.

Medic: Fighters should be fighting. Bonus points if you can score someone extra (older or younger doesn't matter) to take care of everyone's health and do combat medicine so the fighters can fight. Even if the person is an excellent fighter, it's probably in your best interests to make someone 'head medic' and keep them tasked as such.

Bodyguards: A little extra muscle never hurts, and second line or injured fighters can still contribute as defenders of the HQ and the noncombatants.

That is my exceptionally quick lecture on Headquarters, thank you.

DE

Gentlemen, and ladies if any are present, this has been a nice set of lectures from some very well trained experts. I would not attempt to add anything to their suggestions/ideas for tactics for a small force.

However, under the scenario of a sit-x, where you and a small group are bugging out, some of this needs to be thought on long and hard. What I am talking about is the survival part that gets you from your urban home to some redoubt where a more structured defensive program, such as these experts have lined out, can be accomplished.

Five fighting age adults (think two couples and an odd), with seven children, and three elders. This would most likely be closer to what your "unit" will look like when you decide to unass the area for safer environs. This is not a fighting force, this is a defensive bug out group.

Leaving on a bug out means that you will be using roads. You can't go cross country in America much any more. And even if you do, you'll still be fighting past fence after fence and crossing a lot of roads anyway. So use the roads to move faster and use less energy.

Now under most any sit-x, there will be the curfew and the papers check. Movement will be what an enemy wants to control. And the shock of a sit-x will also keep a lot of people at home and indoors. Rural back roads will move you the fastest from point A to point B.

If you have planned ahead, and you're lucky, you'll have food for at most about five days of foot travel. You'll have to travel at the fastest pace of your slowest member, unless you plan on being willing to leave people behind when the going gets bad.

You fight as a very last resort. You move and you don't stop except to rest at night. While it's true that moving people in the dark is a problem, slow careful movement of only a couple of miles after sundown and a couple before sunup mean a great deal when trying to put distance between you and unfriendlies. It is not wise, but it is an idea you must consider.

You eat cold. No fires unless there's an injured person that has to have hot water for medical support. Canned/dried fruit will keep you going for a few days, and if you can't reach safety inside of a week at most, you're dead meat.

Your "smartest" woodsman needs to be on point, less than a 2000 yards in front. This person has to be your fittest, as he/she will have to cover a lot of ground doubling back to give warnings and route instructions. DO NOT have the point mark the trail for you (on those occasions when you circle a suspected checkpoint) unless you have devised a way to "pick up" the markers. The old broken twig pointers from the movies will lead any pursuers to you. This person must be close enough to return to the group to warn of an approaching patrol from the front. More important, this person has to be smart enough to know when to leave the track you are on and find a rougher yet safer way across the area ahead.

Put a fast person, maybe young teen (but not an idiot), to the rear and moving from vantage point to vantage point to watch for pursuit. Motorized patrols will be your worst problem, so this person needs to be a fast mover. This rear guard should never be further than 2000 yards to the rear. They should never be too far behind that they cannot reach the main body before a motor patrol can, because they are your groups warning to hide.

(Now I know about radios and all, but batteries fail at the damnedest times and they can be listened in on and triangulated to if someone becomes suspicious of the chatter. So you need to plan your pattern not to use these.)

The group must practice hide and cover. Basic getting off the trail and behind cover, with their weapons to the front, and staying still till the all clear is given. A motor patrol will pass any point fairly swiftly most of the time, and even if they are alert, a non-moving person is hard to spot from a moving vehicle. You DO NOT want to engage anyone unless there is no choice.

Get well back from any road/track that you are using when it becomes time to camp. Unless the weather just forces you to, do not stay in a structure. Buildings get searched, back field fences get ignored. In a rural area at the right time of year there are often hay lots with a bunch of big round bales that make good shelter from the wind.

Keep a guard/lookout. And have some idea from scouting BEFORE sleeping of at least a couple of ways to leave camp. Eat and get as much rest as possible. The lookout should be rotated so that these people get a half night's sleep as well. Two lookouts are best, as they can keep better watch and are less likely to fall asleep from being tired.

Like I said before, in the US, you will be on a road. There's just not enough forests and fields to avoid it. You may be heading to a national forest, but there will be roads till you get there. And climbing fence after fence will get damned old if you try to take to the fields. BUT, it is recommended when approaching hamlets. It'll slow you down, but towns with crossroads are where baddies like to set up check points.

Now prior planning of your route is crucial. Bugging out will be in two parts, and while the other folks here have given good advice on what to do once you are clear of most of civilization and into the real boonies. Plan a rout that takes you through the least developed areas, over the least traveled roads. And have a destination that you can reach in the time you have food and energy to achieve. (Heading for Canada from Omaha isn't likely to work out too well.)

Next, will you fight or surrender? If you expect the worst, then fight to the death. But be prepared to see people you love bleed and die. Now this is a decision that needs to be reached ahead of time. NOW would be good. There are other threads here that deal with the more mental aspects of survival, and I urge you to read them.

Last, but not least, will you break the moral codes you have known all your lives. Will you steal to eat an extra day if need be? Will you ambush a three man patrol that's sitting down to lunch at the only bridge across a river you have to cross to reach safety? Will you use poisoned meat to kill a guard dog? Decide now, you won't have the luxury of time to think much if TSHTF.

Radio use in hostile territory:

Rule 1: Don't use a radio to boradcast

Rule 2: If you have to break Rule 1, stay on-air for minimum time. In most situations you can communicate the urgent "operative" issues with simple tangent clicks, decide a few simple combinations for forward, fall back, roger etc. But don't use morse code, it's too commonly known.

Rule 3: No periodcal situation reports or other contacts, if some hears a click at 1300hrs, they maybe ready tot triangulate you at 1400.

Thanks a lot all of you for this advice on moving in a bug out situation. Is there any advice that you could give for defending a home and a camp like the one DE reccomended we set up? For the home I would like advice regarding 3 entrences (front back and bilco to basement) as well as reinforcing windows and doors for defence. Again, thank you very much.