This is the US military standard phonetic alphabet in use since the 1960s. (It's also the ICAO alphanumeric used by all aircraft flight crew, and the international radiotelephone operator's alphabet. So kind of useful to know. You will see this material again.) Memorize it. Period.
The ambush is the basic component of warfare for any infantry (or indeed every hunter, fisherman, or trapper) worthy of the name. Master it, and live. Fail, and die.
ambush n.: a surprise attack by people lying in wait in a concealed position.
It combines most of the tactical principles of war into one simple lesson:
Objective Offensive Mass Economy of force Maneuver Unity of command Security Surprise Simplicity
A hunter in a deer stand or a duck blind is an ambush. Every trapper's trap ever placed, and every fish hook hiding in a worm is an ambush. As is every submerged submarine torpedo attack in history. So is a mugger in an alley.
And still, it's easy to get it wrong, if you're an amateur and you don't know what you're doing.
Conducting an ambush assumes several things:
There's someone you need to ambush.
You can identify them positively when you see them.
Your team leader can therefore control whether or not to fire by the members of the team if #1 and #2 are not the case.
I've lost friends in the real world to slob hunters who shot at unidentified movement in the brush; it's even less funny when we're talking about slob infantry. The common words for that is brigands and bandits, and they usually end up shot themselves, or swinging on a rope, neck-first. They are everyone's common enemy, which is a lot of opposition to bite off and chew for your little group, especially if you don't have to do so.Don't be those guys.
Learn the difference between enemies, and unknowns, and how to deal with each one.
So, assuming you can tell who's who, what next?
Determine the type/style of ambush. The classic forms are Linear, L-shaped, and Area/Dispersed.
Linear ambush
L-shaped
Area/Dispersed Ambush
Other ambush type variations
But the varieties are really limited only by imagination, provided you organize them properly.
1. Select the site.
Pick terrain favorable to you, and unfavorable to your intended target(s).
In A-stan, the mujahideen work with light arms, from mountains. Their kill zones are roads below. It works great, especially against road-bound enemies heavily-burdened and tied to vehicles. Ask the Soviet Army about that. (Against supporting arms like artillery and air, with no such mobility problems, and no means to counter it, not so much. Which was why we gave them Stinger MANPADS missiles. The Soviets got their clocks cleaned, and we did commensurately much better, because they didn't have missiles to shoot down our air cover.) Takeaway lesson, the terrain must be selected to take advantages away from your prey, and hand it to you.
Nota bene: The enemy gets a vote. They know about ambushes too, unless you're unnaturally lucky, and meet someone who's clueless, in a Darwin Award-winning manner.
So barring that stroke of fate, they'll naturally be warier and on higher alert when entering ambush terrain. You may have to use elaborate and problematic means to draw them into apparently open terrain in order to spring your surprise, as in the first vignette in this clip:
2. Secure the ambush site.
Nothing would be worse for you, than to be ambushed in your ambush site, while planning and setting yours up. You have to reconnoiter and clear the area, and do so without making your presence obvious, and keep it so until your trap is ready.
Your security element also serves as the gatekeepers on the ambush site, keeping watch for any target(s) approaching the trap.
They also need to know an ambush-worthy target, versus one you might want to let pass by. Think in terms of size. A patrol team or squad shouldn't bite off an ambush with a battalion of several hundred guys as a rule, unless they all have terminal cancer and nothing to lose.
But a lone platoon wandering around fat, dumb, and happy is another story altogether for that same squad. IOW, leveraging surprise and initiative into 3-to-1 casualties is reasonable, and perhaps necessary. Expecting to inflict 20-to-1 or 50-to-1 casualties is farcically foolhardy and futile.
3. Set up forces to conduct the ambush
The team leader on an ambush patrol, whether the ambush is hasty or deliberate, needs to individually place every person where he can see them, communicate with them, and control them, and they must be "in the loop" non-stop, with every person acting in concert, or else you risk premature inititiation, which could turn failed surprise into your funeral.
It is exactly like a symphony: the entire band has to be on the same sheet of music, and the conductor sets the timing.
Know also that your ambush may be conducted relatively near (i.e less that 100m away) or far (greater than 100m away). Those distances are arbitrary, but should give you an idea, for planning purposes. Near ambushes can expect a trained enemy to charge your forces. Plan appropriate disincentives to this response. Spikes, barbed wire, etc.
In far ambushes, the enemy may elect to remain in place, find nearby cover, and attempt to return effective fire. You may wish to do things to make taking cover nearby problematic for them as well. Nasty surprises in nearby ditches and behind boulders, etc., are long-standing procedure in ambushes, as Blaster will explain:
In planning, be aware that enemy columns put out security to the front and flanks, since forever. It's rather awkward to have their flank security wander right into your position, as they're designed to do, and then be yourself surrounded by the larger force now alert to your presence, and pummelled into hamburger by them, because you were inside the boundary of their flank security. Pay heed to that lesson.
4. Assign key tasks and targets
Someone may be designated to hit high-priority targets. These would include, in order, opposing command and control, radio carriers, and anyone operating crew-served weapons like machine guns, especially if your team lacks them. A machinegun against 10-15 men, even in cover and concealment, isn't a disparity of force, it's a turkey shoot. You're the turkeys on that cast list. If there's no command and control, no means of calling in supporting arms, and no force multipliers like automatic weapons or grenade launchers, it's down to your guys under cover vs. their guys, in the open. Shoot priority targets first, every time. Life is dear, and bullets are cheap; use more than one.
5. Set up signals plan
You'll need a way to convey signals for shoot/no-shoot, initiation of ambush, and breaking contact, and actions afterwards. If it's an annihilation ambush, where you destroy the opposing force, you'll need a signal to enter the kill zone, and gather any material or intelligence items. You may even elect to bury the bodies, making discovery less likely, and preventing whatever larger force may have sent the targets into your area from knowing what happened to them.
Or, if things go wrong, the force isn't subdued/destroyed, or their QRF forces reinforce them before you break contact, you need to be able to tell everyone when to cheezit, and get outta Dodge, without it turning into a rout.
You'll need primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency signals for all the above situations.
Ideally, these should all be group-standardized, and part of your patrol SOP, so you only have to do a cursory reinforcement each time out, rather than re-inventing them wholesale, on the fly, time after time.
6. Actions afterwards
Prisoner details, search details, weapons recovery, material destruction, and who'll carry off what, for openers. Burial details possibly, as well. You'll also need medical and casualty evac people assigned; rounds going both ways make you getting off scot-free unlikely.
7. Establish after-action rally points
Everyone should know your primary and alternate places towards which to exfiltrate and fade away, in case enemy action or other eventualities require your team to split up and reconsolidate elsewhere afterwards. Everyone needs to know where, and for how long, each one is active.
8. Wait for a target
9. Initiate the ambush on command
This is the leader's job, based on the information from flank security.
The signal to open fire, if desired, must be foolproof, and immediately understood.
This is why signals that rely on a chain of intitiation, like explosives, need back-up. Things go wrong, and getting a fizzle or a click, when you wanted a bang, is never a good idea. Have redundant redundancies. E.g. "When I shoot, everyone opens fire. If my round misfires, I'll blow this whistle." are better than "When Enemy Squaddie X steps on this cleverly-placed boobytrap, we all start shooting." Squaddie X may not have read your script, and no one steps on the initiating device. This lesson has been written in blood. Don't add a new chapter.
10. Take care of business - rapidly.
Like a bank robbery, every minute you're ambushing someone, is another minute reinforcements may be setting up to ambush you. Do unto others, and get it over with ASAP.
11. Cease fire and enter the kill zone, or break contact and head to rally points.
Command and signals for each option.
Then either depart, or enter the target area, search and strip what's useful, or destroy it. Then split. Orderly, but in haste, once you've accomplished your objectives. Security watching outboard as well as towards the ambush is critical at this point. Police up all brass and anything else to minimize information and intel to enemy follow-up forces sent to look for the missing group. Even if you just haul it a distance away and bury it, make everything you can disappear.
Account for all your people, signal security to collapse back, and un@$$ the area.
The less trace you leave, the better. It confuses and demoralizes opposition to fight ghosts.
If, at some point you choose to leave things behind to point to another entity as being responsible, even a mythical one, this is the time to do that.
12. Patrol back to your next objective, or return to base with your casualties, prisoners, and spoils.
Although the typical examples posit the ambush in a rural setting, be well aware: there is nothing whatsoever that prevents everything in this lesson from being applied in an urban or suburban environment. Precisely as rival narco-cartel gangs, and occasionally government authorities in Mexico and other failed states find out on a regular basis, week after week. Vehicles block targets in a kill zone, and the assault element opens fire. Done correctly, it's brutal and overwhelming. Something even Hollywood (with Tom Clancy's help) could get right.
The only way to learn this, as "fieldcraft" ought to make obvious, is by learning it and practicing the details in the field. By all means, practice it on paper, or even rehearse it as a group on a tabletop with Little Green Army Men (if it sounds stupid, but it works, it's not stupid! No points for guessing how many {that would be all of them} multimillion dollar stunt and driving scenes in movies you've watched are rehearsed by the stunt men with a lunchpail full of little green army men, and Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars. Gospel serious.). But nothing is as good as actual training, out in the boondocks. This is why all military bases are sited in BFEgypt, by design. A number of the entities in the upper right column offer regular skills training out in the woods, and will likely put you in the position of ambusher and ambushee, to drive the points home. You are strongly and heartily advised to take advantage of those training opportunities, or similar, before you get a pop quiz on this information whilst out and about.
You can be the ambush master, or you can be its prey. Your choice.
So, when we left off, you'd gotten yourself into a nice fighting position, but that's just the beginning.
Once you've dug in and improved your position somewhat, you need to begin a Range Card. It's basically a mini-map of your sector of responsibility (and sector of fire, should it come to that) with particular emphasis on obvious landmarks, dead space, and ranges from you to everything you can see.
It's your team leader's job to tell you three things when you're digging in:
1) Principle Direction Of Fire The PDF is where you should be looking, alerting anyone else of anything notable that happens into view, and shooting at it if anything worth shooting at appears, consistent with your team's ROE (Rules Of Engagement). Your hole should be sited to cover that.
2) Your Sector Limits How far to the left and right of your PDF you should be paying attention to, and/or shooting at, with suitable landmarks or compass bearings for both.
3) Your Final Protective Fire line The bearing along which, if everything goes to hell, you should be shooting to put a curtain of screaming lead to prevent your team's position being overrun.
Your responsibility is to put in limit stakes (or rocks) at your end, to that you can point your weapon alongside them to the limits of your sector to either side, along with similar arrangements for your PDF and FPF, so that, even in the dark and absent NODs, you could fire a line along either and hit anything from 0-72 inches above the ground along that bearing.
Then to walk you sector, or have someone else do it, to see if there are any spots where a person could successfully hide from your fire. This is called dead space, not because they'll be dead outside it, but because you can't put any live fire into it.
If any of that is within hand grenade-throwing range (25m or so), you'll want to find ways to put something there to make it less attractive to occupy, whether that something is just noisy (to alert you), or actually painful or hazardous (to penalize attempts to occupy it without you shooting at it). Ideally, both, and in such a way that it's not obvious that whatever is put there has been deliberately placed, but rather appears natural to casual observation. Jumbled piles of sharp rocks and old brush, with jagged points and edges, are better for this than obvious human-constructed spikes, and accomplish roughly the same effect.
But mainly, you want to visually identify obvious landmarks and your sector lines, and range the distance from you to them, out to the limit of your own weapon's effectiveness or the limit of your vision, so that you know at what range any target(s) at those landmarks are at, or what ranges they're between, to use all that rifle marksmanship you learned, and deliver accurate fire on them if necessary.
Assuming your rifle is BZO'ed, everything from 0-300m will be hit on a man-sized target with the same sight setting for you, so your primary concern is the 300-600m range, where correct range settings are more important to hit accurately.
You can pace it off, or have your battle buddy do that while walking the area looking for dead space, but a modern expedient that's probably easier and more accurate would be a simple laser rangefinder available from dozens of websites, hunting suppliers, etc. If someone has a dedicated rifle for marksmanship beyond 500m, get a rangefinder that will accommodate all such possibilities.
Otherwise, one that'll handle 600m or less will suffice for 7.62mm and 5.56mm modern battle rifles at all probably ranges.
In heavier cover, 100m may be all the distance you've got, but ideally, you're somewhere inside the edge of that heavy cover, looking out at open ground. Second choice, everything's open, but your position is camouflaged and has sufficient cover.
In any event, once your hole is basically prepared, learn the ground outwards from where you are, unless you want your fighting hole to become your burial hole.
It isn't necessary to reproduce an exhaustive detailed survey map of everything you can see. What you're going for is something that will allow you, and your buddy in a shared hole, to know everything they need to know about what's out there with a quick glance, in order to land hits on target. Less may very well be more. This most everything you need to know:
You could print up a few hundred examples of any or all of the range card(s) illustrated. Better idea: make up a dozen or two. 5"x8", if you please. They'll fit in a leg cargo pocket, or the top flap of a pack, where they belong. (You can put the cheat sheet order of completion on the back, if you're clever.) Print them on the heaviest card stock you can, short of actual poster board. Laminate those suckers so they're waterproof. Write your data on them with your grease pencil (you're carrying at least one apiece, right?), and then when you move, wipe it off for the next position. make enough for everyone on the team, plus spares, and keep them in waterproof bags as well.
Yes, you could try and memorize all this every time, but you may have to change holes for various reasons, or you may have been the guy asleep when Mr. Murphy comes calling, and are a bit hazy on details despite the adrenaline dump of waking up to fires exchanged on a two-way range. Also, recall that first standing order of Robert Rogers to the original Rangers was "Don't forget nothing." That is why we write things down.
This embiggens. Words to live by for 250 years, and counting.
And BTW, range cards work great at your ultimate retreat as well, for the same reasons. And even in your current home. You don't have to put them in plexiglass holders under the windows in the living room (the wife would probably freak, right?). But there's nothing that says you can't have a pre-made set that detailed, ready and sitting in a handy envelope in the gun safe or filing cabinet. Nothing wrong with that, in case the Free Shit Army comes calling after the next disaster, is there? ;)
It also could be that someone (what? who?) might see some value in placing a rock or ten, painted white on one side out in the distance at either regular ranges (say 100m distances), with a number in hundreds of meters facing back towards their position, for long-term occupied positions. Like a home, or whatnot. A more surreptitious approach might be to put rocks in a line outwards, with 1 rock for 100m, two together for 200m, and so on, particularly aimed at obvious avenues of approach, out to the limit of your effective fire. (Whether you seal a wad of Tannerite facing inboard towards you, for future warning purposes at the property line terminus, is between you and your conscience. So is appropriate signage, to preserve the sporting purposes of the endeavor. Just saying.)
Now you know why all the original graduates of the service academies were trained surveyors and engineers (which experience seems to have helped out Geo. Washington too), and why Sun Tzu and von Clauswitz spent a lot of time talking about the ground you fight on.
Some principles of warfare never, ever change. So learn the job, before you have to do the job.
Above is the standard basic fighting hole that every person should be digging prior to settling in for the night outside of friendly locations. The rule of thumb in the day was one M-16 wide, two helmets or bayonets long, and armpit depth of the man occupying the hole.
The team leader assigns sectors, and the hole should be sited such that anyone inside it can shoot in the indicated direction.
The point of the hole should be obvious: it reduces the amount of you that can be seen, or hit by direct (someone shooting at you) or indirect (mortars, artillery, and grenades going off nearby) fire, and it also decreases your visibility and personal signature when you aren't on watch.
It's not any more complicated than that. But the longer it's occupied, the more it should get improved.
The first improvement is doubling it up to a two-man fighting hole.
Now you get more coverage, and no one is left alone at any point. It also means that, as a rule, one of you can be eating, sleeping, etc. while the other is on watch, at some point, and if anything happens to one, the other becomes the first aid guy for him.
Consistent with the unit leader's directions, the sectors of fire can be angled to the oblique, meaning anyone shooting at you is shooting at a lump of dirt, and you're shooting at anyone approaching from their sides, which protects your guys, and leaves their guys vulnerable.
This depends on adjoining fighting positions to cover the entire perimeter with fire in order to work. With a small group, the fire sectors (and your vulnerability) increase commensurately. But you always try to set yourself up so that you can shoot, while minimizing the chance of getting shot, if you're doing this right.
Remember, the longer you're inside it, the more you improve the hole. You'd want to add a firing step, improve water drainage, make a spot to put your ready ammunition, and add a grenade sump (a place for grenades thrown at you to fall and explode without killing you is the theory).
The next improvement is adding overhead cover, to provide additional camouflage, protection from rain and weather, and additional cover from explosives, shell fire, or fire from the air or above, depending on terrain.
It should be obvious, but if you're not going to be in one location long enough, you won't have time for building the Hilton. And if there's no natural material for overhead cover, like small trees, you won't be having any of that either, because you're not toting engineer stakes or 4"x4" lumber with you to make the supports.
Fighting holes in fixed emplacements and long-term bases should start taking on the appearance of WWI trenchworks, possibly to the point of dedicated timber or reinforced concrete emplacements and shelters. But learn the basic e-tool constructed version, as you'll be dealing with that far more often than not.
On the basic hole, you'll want to make things easier by constructing elbow holes in the spot necessary for you to be pointing in the primary direction you should be looking, and firing if attacked.
Prior to darkness falling, you'd also best find some sticks to make limit stakes and aiming stakes. As the name might imply, limit stakes are the limits of your sector of fire. (In less vegetated areas, you may necessarily have to make do with limit rocks.) Aiming stakes are aligned in your primary direction of fire, so that in the dark, you're delivering fire along a given line "to whom it may concern".
And once you go to the trouble to construct a fighting hole, you want to camouflage it with natural vegetation cover from the surrounding area, to make it harder to see and identify. Otherwise, having an obvious position just invites all the incoming fire to your address.
The more time you have to spend, and the more attention to detail you give to your fighting hole, the better the camouflage, the more effective the protection, and the more lethal and surprising it becomes if attacked, or blundered into.
Above: Japanese fighting position, Makin Atoll 1945 Bottom: Vietcong bunker, Cu Chi, 1975 Neither one was captured during the wars during which they were used. Now you know why your fathers and grandfathers in each case hated those little bastards, and respected them.
Fighting holes save lives, and take them. You need to master their construction and improvement, and respect what they bring to the table when done right. You won't get a second chance if you get it wrong, on either offense or defense.
So, you've answered nature's call, well away from your team, after dark. Or you're a smaller patrol from a larger body, returning to your patrol base, or your main camp, during darkness. Or just a good teamleader, checking on your people in different spots in the middle of the night. They know someone's out there, but the question is, how do you get close enough to prove it's you without getting shot at?
That's the problem challenge and password were designed to solve, going back centuries.
When someone hears you approach, you're told to "Halt!"
(Important safety tip for those who aren't prior-service military: "Halt!" is always shorthand-speak for "I see you, and my front sight is leveled on your center-of-mass." Halt is therefore not a suggestion, any time it is heard. You may safely assume your position is even sketchier than that, depending on the darkness level, the experience level of a given group, or the tactical situation. Respond appropriately. Bullets in flight have no friends forward of the muzzle, and neither do sentries on post until the my team/not my team question has been sorted out to their satisfaction.)
Pay attention at this point, because getting it wrong will see you experiencing fire that is anything but friendly.
Having frozen absolutely in place, the next words will be some version of "Who goes there?" The correct answer is never, "It's me!", because it's dark, and nobody can tell who "me" is.
You may not get the formal version, you may simply get the challenge. A previously agreed upon word will be spoken, and you'd better come up with the correct reply, quickly, because when this is done right, bullets coming your way are a couple of pounds of trigger squeeze from happening. (This is why you pay attention during daily briefings, and always know the challenge and password.)
The idea is to pick two words that have nothing to do with each other, so that no one can work out even by guessing that the challenge "Indiana" might be answered with "Jones".
A list of them may be generated randomly, and any team or person leaving for multiple days should have each day's challenge and response for the days they're out (ideally memorized, rather than written down).
You're looking for word pairs like "octopus" being answered with "banana", not "banana" and "split".
And to prevent someone nearby in the brush hearing the pair of words correctly, and using them against you, your original challenge at distance may be (ought to be) a number.
The way it works is that at the same time a challenge and password are announced, there is also a number selected. It should be an odd number, from 3-11 or so.
The way that works, is that if the number announced is "nine", you may hear a challenge of "two". You answer the number it takes to make nine, so having passed first grade, you say "seven". At that point, you advance until you're within a couple of steps, and the standard challenge word "octopus" is uttered in your direction very quietly, whereupon you offer "banana", and everyone relaxes a bit as you approach, until they can see you're okay.
If you're the only one, we're done. If not, you tell them, "friendly patrol of eight", and you stay close by to count and ID the other seven members.
This isn't just cool-guy stuff, enemy have infiltrated friendly patrols on dark nights in the jungle or forest, in the real world. (This is also why you do head counts at halts. I've been out and fallen in along a trail among a group of border crossers at oh-dark-thirty, who had no idea they had picked up several additional members in the dark, until we threw the lights on at their next halt; and war stories abound of NCOs on patrol in places like Vietnam who suddenly had larger patrols than they'd started with, mid-way through.) Things can understandably get messy if you don't notice things like that.
So the number may need to get repeated with each and every approaching member, then the challenge and password when they're up very close.
The reason you picked an odd number is so that the number answered is always a different number than the one challenged. If the number were ten, and the challenge were "five", someone ignorant of your language could mimic "five" in reply, and get it right by blind luck. So odd numbers always.
You may chose to pick and use numbers (or be in the position of someone else doing it) in another language. So you'd better be able to count in whatever the language agreed upon is. It may be advantageous not to let the group in the dark know who you are, whether you're using Spanish in the southwest desert, or using French in the Canadian border woods or bayou swamps, instead of English numbers in either event.
There may also be challenge/password pairs for your home group, and a different one just for your team's use, and different numbers for both. A good idea is to change both daily, at an agreed upon time (probably during the daytime - say, at noon, or 9AM - so no one leaves under one set of passwords/numbers at 6PM, and comes back to a new set after midnight. Imagine if someone's watch were off a bit, and the ensuing mischief that could cause.)
You may also issue codes for duress, which lets a sentry know that you're giving the answers with a gun to your head or a knife to your own throat, or that of someone else in your party. You may also assign an "everything's okay" word as well. Work this out before the day, including if you're going to use it at all.
Working at a gun store, if anyone heard the word "hamburger" spoken aloud by counter staff or the cashiers, a number of guns carried there were going to be coming out momentarily by way of greeting. There's little worse to greet someone trying to stick up the place than eight guys all pointing guns at you. Whatever the decision, and the word, decide on the response to such a code in either case. The person who knows what's going on should be hitting the deck just in time to let the party crashers catch the incoming lead.
That's what challenge/password and number codes are for: to keep your guys alive, and recognize bad guys trying to get in your position when it's too dark to see them. They don't need to know whether or not you can see them in the dark with NODs. They just need to know they're in the crosshairs when you can hear them, and they can hear your challenge.
Responses should be instant, because at night, when people are pointing guns, delay increases stress, and the consequent likelihood of someone getting lit up.
Yes, we really are going to cover How To Sh*t In The Woods.
Get it right, and life is happy. Get it wrong, and you may get a visit from Mssrs. Dysentery and Hepatitis. They are not your friends., and if you give them to your team mates, they won't be your friends either.
Option 1: The Cathole
Step 1:
a) Downhill from your position b) Downstream from your water supply point c) 200' away from that or ideally any water source, or your campsite, minimum
Step 2:
For the uninitiated, the stick replaces toilet paper when you don't have that, or the three seashells if you're from San Angeles in the dystopian future.
If you don't have an e-tool (WTF?), or you were going lightweight, these things are the bomb, for about $10 @ WallyMart, etc.:
Option 2: The Slit Trench For larger units and/or a longer stay in a lay-up or patrol base.
Bury as you go. The cans over the toilet paper are to keep it dry in rainy environments or on misty nights and dewy mornings. And if you're using MREs, everyone whose BTDT knows you always save the TP bundles, and put them in a ziplok. They may be all you get for some time, and beggars can't be choosers. Otherwise, find a really good stick, without bark or splinters.
Option 3:
Pack it in, pack it out. You'll want plastic, with no holes in the bags. This is the option selected by elite reconnaissance units, going back years. If you don't leave it in the field, there's nothing for anyone to find later on. You can also elect to deposit all the bags at one central location later on, away from your area of interest, buried and concealed well, and far off your line of march. And you do what you like, but if it's going in my pack, I'm double knotting it, and double-bagging it.
And wash your hands afterwards!
The way to break the fecal-oral disease vector is to clean up after yourself, scrupulously.
And although it's grey water and not black, you should do the same with anything including water or residue left over after washing eating or cooking utensils, brushing teeth, shaving, etc. Dig a sump hole, far from water supplies, and bury it. Getting discovered because someone saw your sudsy crud floating by downstream will be painful, was stupid, and is easily prevented.
And BTW, baby wipes and disinfecting hand sanitizer are your friend.
We said at the beginning that the most important form of discipline in self-discipline.
This is where it pays out dividends, if you have it.
On a patrol, your goal is to get as close to not being there when you are as you can get. Much of that advantage may be obtained after dark, because even with the availability of night observation devices, most people won't have them, so darkness itself still confers a powerful advantage. Provided you do your utmost to leave no trace, in three important areas.
Noise Nothing about you should make the merest sound, even while moving. You should plan your footsteps so as not to be heard. You shouldn't talk, ever, unless it's unavoidable, and at that point, it should be muted, muffled, or whispered.
Your gear shouldn't rattle, jingle, squeak. Everything from footgear to pack should be placed and broken in so as not to give the slightest notice of your arrival or passage. This includes attachments, like slings, on weaponry. This should be checked by you first, then by the patrol leader before you set out, and anything that makes noise secured, taped, padded, or whatever is necessary to silence it. If you carry your water in a camelback-style bladder rather than canteens (suggested), you can suck all the air out of the bladder through the drinking tube until there isn't any, and you will drastically decrease any sloshing noise from it. Hard items in your pack should be placed and padded among softer items. Everything should be secured tightly so it doesn't shift inside its carrier. Buttons, toggles, and speed clips are better than Velcro or zippers, because quieter. If present, zipper pulls should be replaced with 550 cord knotted loops, and the loops tucked under fabric/material flaps, or elastic bands, or taped down, to prevent them moving and rattling in any way. You should practice moving weapon safeties from safe to fire slowly, and with a minimum or absence of detectable noise. Nothing in nature makes such an obvious and unnatural metallic "click". If ammunition or magazines carried rattle, pad them with useful items: spares socks, or extra weapons cleaning patches. Putting a folded muslin bandana/arm sling or battle dressing under magazines will raise them a little to pull out easier, quiet them, and give you additional first aid supplies.
Consider a trick illegal aliens have used in the southwest desert for decades: blanket booties on soft to moderate ground. A doubled rectangle of blanket big enough to wrap each boot is placed and held with baling wire, shoelace, or 550 cord. It muffles boot footsteps, and eliminates most visible track sign on soft ground. When worn out or not needed, it can be removed, cheaply replaced, and discarded with other trash after the patrol.
And FTR, radios should be on silent mode - no beeps, etc. - and can be used with headphones and earpieces (and should be, always), and you can make a mouth-sized cup out of rubber or silicone that surrounds the microphone, so you can talk without being heard nearby. And the sound output to earpieces should never be loud enough that someone nearby can hear you either.
Light Nothing in nature is reflective except snow, ice, and water. Nothing on you should shine or reflect light. Anything worn to shiny should be painted, dyed, or taped over, down to even boot eyelets. Daylight and moonlight reflected will be seen 10-50 times farther than the human form can be seen. If Killflash items are available for your weapons scope, binoculars, or other optics, make use of it. If not, you can make a field expedient with a piece of ladies' dark nylon hosiery, and elastic bands or tape to hold it in place, stretched over anything reflective, while still retaining the ability to see through it for its intended use. Skin shines too, in daylight and moonlight. Camo up, or wear spandoflage, a knitted mask, or something similar. Even a hood made of solid camo, olive drab, or other earth-toned t-shirt, with eye holes, if better than bare skin.
At night, light use should be minimized and filtered. Red is the least energetic color in the visible spectrum; no white light should ever be used at night. It can be seen for miles. For the same reason, no visible flame or firelight either. A single match is visible for 10-15 miles at night in a dark expanse of desert or open plains. Showing such a light is like ringing a bell, or shooting off a flare, if anyone remotely observant is about. Fire use in general should be avoided on patrol, or at most, of the buried-beneath-ground-level variety, and exceedingly small and smokeless. They also obviously provide a thermal flare that creates additional IR signature, and create smells detectable by humans for distances of hundreds of yards, and 3-5X that far by tracking dogs.
Trash and Tracks For "minimal impact" backpackers, the mantra has long been "Take only pictures; leave only footprints". For any sort of patrol, don't even leave the footprints. Anything you packed in, you pack out. Anything. Food, wrappers or cans, batteries, ammunition/brass. All of it is permanent forensic evidence of your presence, visit, group size, level of equipment and provision, origin, etc. If you don't leave it behind, it isn't there to find by anyone later, ever.
Take another lesson from illegals crossing the southern border: brush out tracks, and minimize or eliminate the ones you leave. If you travel in inclement weather, rain and snow will eliminate your tracks for all but close pursuit. If you travel over hard ground, sign will be minimal. If you carefully brush out sign (your last man's 6-o'clock watch should include this duty), you'll make detection or pursuit by amateurs impossible, and extremely difficult even for trained tracking parties. or other patrols who may cross your route.
The safest way not to be detected, is not to leave anything that lets anyone know you are or were there. Going undetected is life, and getting detected can be death. And in bad times, going on a patrol will probably include the fact that your team is on your own. Fieldcraft include being a giant non-entity in the field, in the same way an attack submarine makes less noise than the water around it.
At this point, you know how to get from one point to another, both tactically, so you minimize your risk of being seen while maximizing your chance of arrival, and in such a way that you arrive at the correct destination at which you were aiming.
But at some point, on anything over a day, you're going to need to lay up, and give people a chance to eat, sleep, poop, et cetera.
That's what a patrol base is for.
The world isn't perfect.
But in a perfect world, you want a spot that has the following attributes:
1) Good all-around visibility 2) Defensible 3) Multiple avenues of approach and exit 4) Concealed 5) Unappealing to others for occupation or reconnaissance by fire 6) Near water but not right by water
Most of these are mutually exclusive, so you'll be making compromises between different aspects in almost all situations.
You can (and should) look over the selection criteria from the Ranger Handbook
(1) Selection Criteria.
• Select Terrain the enemy would probably consider of little tactical
value.
• Select Terrain that is off main lines of drift.
• Select difficult terrain that would impede foot movement such as an
area of dense vegetation, preferably bushes and trees that spread
close to the ground.
• Select Terrain near a source of water.
• Select Terrain that can be defended for a short period of time and that
offers good cover and concealment.
• Avoid known or suspected enemy positions.
• Avoid Built-up areas.
• Avoid Ridges and hilltops, except as needed for maintaining
communications.
• Avoid Small valleys.
• Avoid Roads and trails.
In short, something that's good for you, bad for anyone that doesn't like you, but not obviously the exact place where he'd think you'd be if he was you.
There is a training film that may help.
And, surprising no one, the Pythons stumbled over the essence of the patrol base concept: Don't be seen.
As the opening diagram of this post displays, once you pick your spot, your team, of whatever size, needs to conduct a thorough and slow reconnaissance before occupying it. Because a spot that looks good to you probably looks good to people who don't like you. It would be awkward to try and move in if they're already at home there, wouldn't it?
So well before it's dark, pick the spot. Observe it. Investigate it thoroughly close-in, and working outward. Best if you don't trample an obvious path to it from your line of progress, which is rather the same thing as saying "Shoot up this area" to anyone who comes along after you've moved into the neighborhood, and finds those signs.
Once you move in, set up your group in such a way that they're watching, and can watch, 360° around at all times. One or two persons/teams/whatever will be doing exactly that, when the rest are doing admin tasks like reporting in, eating, cleaning weapons, or answering nature's call. If everybody flakes out or goes to sleep, it's okay - if you want to risk none of them ever waking up. If you like staying alive, someone is always on watch.
Units doing this under real-world conditions learned to assume they were always under observation. So they'd occupy a likely spot, and make the fullest appearance of settling in.
Then, once it was too dark to tell, they'd quietly gather up, move a few hundred yards away, do it all over again in the dark, and then settle in for the night in the second spot.
Nothing, I'm sure, warms you heart more than having someone loudly attack your old position while you sit in a new place and watch the fun, not being there to receive someone's worst doings. Any patrol means you're either predator, or prey. Try not to be prey.
Once you occupy the patrol base, there are priorities of work to accomplish.
1) Security - continuously This will include creating hasty fighting positions, controlling access in/out (should be a single point in the perimeter circle), and making sure everyone knows the direction they're responsible for, for watching, and if necessary, for shooting.
2) Withdrawal - could become necessary at any time Everyone needs to know the signal, direction, and where to go
3) Communication
4) Mission planning - for continued operations
5) Maintenance of weapons and gear No more than 25% of your weapons down at any one time
6) Water re-supply Make sure anything collected by anyone is treated or purified before anyone drinks it
7) Eating
8) Rest vs. Alertness Who's on, and who's off, and when they change
9) Re-distribution of supplies/equipment
10) Personal hygiene and sanitation Slit trench(es) for poop, and urine cathole(s) should be selected ( away from water point) and designated to all team members, and constructed. And filled in well afterwards, for all departures except those under fire.
That's pretty much the order things should follow, and anything ought to be done in such a way that if things go pear-shaped, the entire group could be gone in sixty seconds. If not, you're doing it wrong, and you'll eventually pay for the laxity.
The patrol base may be occupied for just a brief rest halt, overnight, or for several days. However long, it should be constantly improved inside, and remain unknown or noticed from outside, until departure.
GPS stands for Global Positioning System, the 21st century marvel that allows pinpoint navigation to any point on the planet. If you have a receiver. If you can "see" enough satellites. If your batteries aren't dead.
[And, because someone will bring it up: for the irredeemably fucktarded cretins who were fetal-alcohol syndrome conceived, cousin-bred, and lovingly raised on a steady diet of lead paint chips in the crowd, let's get this out of the way:
GPS doesn't "track" you, you incredibly dim fuckwitted morons.
A GPS receiver (as its name might suggest to even Common Core graduates) only receives signals from GPS satellites. You cannot be "tracked" by using it any more than you can be "tracked" by turning on your TV or car radio. Jackasses. I hope I've made the point blisteringly clear, even for those so cluelessly fucktarded they didn't know they were fucktards.
What your cellphone does isn't a GPS receiver, it has to "talk" back and forth endlessly to every cell tower within range to let it know how to route your calls to your phone. Once again, if you don't know the difference between a gadget that only receives, versus one that sends a constant electronic tracking signal out multiple times a minute on you 24/7/365, you're too short for this section of the Internet ride.
What a vehicle GPS Tracker does, by design, when installed on public safety and fleet vehicles including many rental cars should be fundamentally obvious, for the same reasons.
You can be tracked with other devices, using received GPS data. But GPS isn't tracking you. Think about it: there are a gajillion receivers, broadcasting nothing. HTF didja think that "tracking" was going to happen? It's not Sauron's Eye, FFS. It's like the NWS weather radio stations: it just pumps out data, 24/7/365.
So fuck off with your stupid shit, and don't embarrass yourself with the slightest discussion in that vein, unless you just want to pull your pants down, spank yourselves, and then be hastily relegated to the ether.
You're an embarrassment to actual village idiots.]
Having gotten that PSA out of the way, GPS is a constellation of (31, at present) satellites owned by the USAF, in earth orbit at an altitude of roughly 12,500 miles. Each one has an atomic clock, and sends out a digital time signal. By your receiver grabbing any four (or more) signals, it computes the difference between them, and locates you in three dimensional space, and gives your position and velocity on or over the earth's surface. More satellites visible by your receiver refines your position. Better signal visibility and clarity (i.e. not in a deep canyon, or blocked by heavy tree cover) also helps. And as Russian, Japanese, Chinese, etc., constellations of satellites are added, and the signal on the original system upgraded, the position error inherent drops to the point that it can be within a foot or two of where you are.
Prior to 2000, and if necessary for national defense reasons, the USAF can turn on "selective availability", i.e. deliberately delay or degrade the positioning information, to prevent it being used to target us. Largely that's been done away with since 2000, but the capability to re-insert it is always there. In practice, the worldwide bad press for crashing airplanes full of innocent civilians into mountains which were relying on the signal to navigate and land means that short of nuclear missiles flying, even the Air Farce isn't likely to turn it off or degrade it significantly. So relax unless you actually see mushroom clouds.
It is therefore available to the world, free, and with military precision, much like Roman roads were two millennia ago. You're welcome, you ungrafteful bastards.
Also, the existence of European, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and Indian systems deployed or planned kind of undo that clever "selective availability" ploy, unless they all do it simultaneously. (We did it to India in 1999 because they were fighting a war we didn't want them to be fighting; see if you can cleverly guess when India decided to deploy their own GPS satellites into space with atomic clocks).
So, in detail, say you have one of these:
So, if you have a decent GPS, then what?
A) Turn it on.
B) Let it collect enough satellites in its view to fix your position.
C) Once it nails that down, plot that location, and off you go.
That's what you need to know.
You can use it non-stop, or run it off car power via 12V in a vehicle as long as you have engine power.
On internal power, they tend to be battery hogs because of the display.
If you turn it off, it may take several minutes to relocate itself, each time you do it.
If you're in a bad reception spot, they may not lock on at all, or you may lose lock-on in exactly the sort of place - heavy woods, etc. - you ought to be walking through.
The batteries may run down while you're using them.
You might drop them, break them, or simply have them go tits-up, usually when you need them most.
In short, they're fantastic pieces of gear, and highly useful - when they work.
They should not be your first or last piece of wayfinding apparatus, for the shortcomings mentioned.
Also, be careful, because you'll be responsible for the currency of the data downloaded.
No one likes to talk about it, but part of the reason KAL 007 was shot down by godless commie bastards back in the day was because the copilot likely mis-programmed his waypoints into the airplane nav system, which flew them over the Soviet Union and into a large flaming fireball. Sometimes, stupid does hurt.
So if your GPS has old or inaccurate data, you can end up in bad places too. People who rely solely on them have driven down dead-end roads miles from civilization, into canyons in the wilderness, and been stranded for days (because they were too stupid to stop, and too clueless to realize they were being led to nowhere). Bad data may point you to places that don't exist, because of errors unknown or intentional from some mapping companies, or simple software flaws in complex devices.
On the plus side, you can have them talk to you in degrees, minutes, and seconds; or decimal degrees; or UTM grid co-ordinates; or MGRS coordinates (to ten digits!) instantly, which is yuuuuuuge. And they'll also output about 40-80 other map datums. You can load most of the topos for half a US state (probably more now with Moore's Law) into them, and they'll display them, and zoom in on or out of them. Even in foreign languages.
When. They. Work.
Should you have one, carry one, use one?
Hell YES!
Should you rely on one as your sole piece of navigation gear?
Only if you want to take a shot at living the entire movie Castaway in real life.
They are extremely useful.
Take lots of spare batteries, and multiple backups, including, at minimum, a map of the area, a protractor, a good compass, and the ability to use those tools exclusively, if/when the GPS dies on you.
So that you don't.
Is there a place for using GPS on patrol, in the field?
Absolutely.
That place is right behind the guys doing the pace count, running the compass, and carrying the map.
Every. Single. Time.
-----
That concludes the Land Nav section of Fieldcraft.
Not counting the news outlets or websites along the full range of accuracy and veracity, I follow multiple actual individuals' handwritten blogs. (Bot news aggregators don't thrill me.) Looking them over, many are current serving or former military and a couple are some variation of high-speed low-drag elite forces ninjas. Or just funny as all. Because life without humor is just despair. So in other words, the same folks I trusted in the military not to wet the bed, sh*t themselves, or otherwise run around like headless Nancys, are the same folks I trust on the interwebz, for demonstrating pretty much the same trustworthiness and circumspectly responsible behavior. Color me shocked.
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