Contact!

by Max Velocity

  If you have more shooters and vehicles, then you can put more shooters in the lead vehicle and at the least a shooter riding ‘shotgun’ in the family vehicle in a close protection role. If your protection packet has three vehicles then you have a lead advance vehicle, a central ‘client’ protected family vehicle and a rear ‘chase’ or ‘CAT’ vehicle (counter attack team). This allows bounding over-watch, dismounted fire support positions, and for the CAT vehicle to move up to provide support for the lead or protected family vehicle to extract.

  These tactics will be covered in more detail later. There could be debate about ‘keeping all your eggs in one basket’ with the non-combatants in the middle vehicle(s), but if you spread them out it is harder to protect them. Better to have front protection vehicles, central protected vehicle(s) and rear protection vehicles. Your packet could take numerous forms, but if we simplify to a three or four vehicle packet we probably have the lead and chase vehicles at the front and rear with the one or two protected vehicles in the center. The procedure for bounding over-watch:

   Identify the vulnerable point (VP) otherwise known as the potential ambush site. Pass the word to the convoy.

   Observe the location as best as possible to identify any enemy lying in wait.

   The lead vehicle ‘goes firm’ as fire support. This vehicle dismounts (except the driver) into appropriate fire positions.

   The protected vehicles remain a tactical bound behind, protection provided by integral shooters riding shotgun.

   The rear vehicle moves through the VP and moves to a suitable position beyond to cover forward and back into the VP.

   Now, both front and rear vehicles have the area covered with potential fire support from each side of the VP.

   The protected vehicles rapidly move through the VP.

   The lead vehicle pushes through, regains position at the front and the convoy continues.

  The key thing in an ambush is to get ‘off the X’ as soon as possible. If you have not managed to AVOID, and you end up ambushed with no obstruction in the road, then try to speed up and drive through. Return fire from the vehicles if possible. If the way out to the front is blocked, and there is no feasible way forward, or around, or off to the side around the road block, then reverse out. If a route is blocked by light vehicles then you may be able to drive through it and ram vehicles out of the way: the technique is to slow down into low gear to approach the block, then gun the engine at the last minute and push, not smash, the vehicles out the way: strike at the corners to push the vehicles off to the side.

  Shoot through your windscreen and through doors/windows as necessary to suppress the enemy. If the enemy is located at a front vehicle roadblock (like the stereotypical police type ones you see on TV) then you can drive at them firing through the windscreen, if you have to, or better still you can reverse away with the passenger shooter firing through the windscreen.

  If a vehicle is immobilized on the X, then you have two options:

  1) A rescue vehicle comes back, or forward from the rear, and cross-decks the passengers, bearing in mind neither vehicle is armored which lessens the protection you have from the immobilized vehicle as you conduct this maneuver; preferably you will have a third vehicle providing fire support during this.

  2) The convoy having transited the ambush with the exception of the immobilized vehicle, the surviving support vehicles dismount outside of the X and take up a position of fire support while those in the immobilized vehicle dismount and fight back to them using fire and movement. If your babies are in the family car on the X, then clearly you are driving in to get them as per option 1.

  If you are in a single family car immobilized on the X, then you have to get out and return fire while your spouse pulls the kids out and into the culvert/ditch/dead ground away from the enemy fire. Always get out of the car on the opposite side to where the fire is coming from, even though this means scooting across the seats. Then you will have to return fire and try and get off the X. Popping smoke would be useful to mask movement.

  If possible, do not just return fire in the general direction (we covered that earlier) but use accurate fire to kill the enemy. Have the kids crawl out in whatever dead ground there is, with one of you providing close protection, guidance and supervision while the other makes fire and movement bounds and provides accurate covering fire. Crawl out to wherever the ground dictates. If there are other shooters or shooter teenagers involved on your side, then they can fire and move with you while the babies and mom crawl out. But, just because you armed a teenager or young adult, does not say or predict how he / she will perform under first time contact. Terrifying. Does it make you cringe just thinking about it?

  If you just abandoned your vehicle and all your supplies on the road in an ambush, then you have survival priorities. If you could, you should have bugged out from the vehicle carrying ‘grab bags’ of essential ammo, water, food, medical emergency supplies. However, once the family is at a safer location and there is no sign of follow up, you may want to consider the situation and the strength of the enemy force. If they are looting your vehicle in the open, then you could consider a counter attack, preferably using stand-off weapons range and marksmanship. Put them down without mercy, they tried to kill your family. Take your stuff back. Get another vehicle, cross load, and get out of there.

  Consider escalation of profile. Depending on the situation, you will either be wearing full battle rattle, (body armor, vest, assault rifle and handgun), or you will likely be wearing the same rig but in a low profile configuration. Consider how active you expect law enforcement to be as the situation deteriorates. It may not all be black and white, it may be shades of gray, with authorities stopping people who are armed etc. ‘The Man’ (i.e. the State/Government of any country) historically requires and needs to maintain the monopoly of violence and the use of force, even if that leaves citizens unable to protect themselves against the criminal element.

  It is therefore possible, or likely, that law enforcement will not be taking courses of action that are best for the safety of you and your family, but will be based on other considerations, such as not allowing citizens to be ‘armed and dangerous’. If you are in a vehicle, you can lower your profile by putting a large shirt over your body armor and rig. However, consider the law. Does a CCW cut it? What about a local Sheriff’s Deputy who is trying to enforce the law against strangers coming onto his turf? How well trained and informed is he really? Maybe he has a police roadblock or pulls you over on the back road. If he wants to take your weapons or take you into the station, then this may be a lethal threat to the safety of your family, if the situation has really gone to complete disorder and the deputy is operating in denial on an old set of rules. How to deal with that? Do you let him? Ponder it.

  Specific threats and TTPs:

  Jammed Roadways: It would be best to avoid this in its entirety. Take alternate routes, either planned in advance or based upon a quick map assessment. Make sure you have the right paper maps available in your vehicles, showing detail down to small back roads. It may be that you are transiting gridlocked roadways sometime post event and the obstacle is simply parked vehicles, with the occupants long gone. In these situations you can try and use the road and find ways around. If it is a back road that is blocked by parked traffic, then consider ambush, (more below under unmanned roadblocks) but also consider your ability to push or winch vehicles out of the way to make a way through. Vehicles can also be ‘bounced’ out of the way by a team using the firefighter technique.

  Law enforcement/military traffic control points (TCPs): If we are in a slow-slide gray area situation then you will need to adjust your profile and conceal weapons accordingly. Be legal and treat the personnel manning the TCP with courtesy and respect. Have your identity documents and vehicle registrations in order. Have a good reason for being on the road: where are you going and why? Make an assessment as you approach the TCP to whether you think it is legitimate. Try
and avoid such check-points, but once you get close to them any avoidance type action will be perceived as suspicious and will likely trigger a pursuit or kinetic response.

  Illegal traffic control points (ITCPs): Assess and avoid. Try to maintain stand-off. These can effectively be the same as roadblocks, see next item, and will likely be designed to relieve you of your property and / or liberty. If you end up pulling up to one of these, perhaps by mistake, then be prepared for action. It could be that it is manned by personnel impersonating police or military, and you don't realize until you pull up, or even police and military that are no longer in on official capacity. Try and stop short and avoid by reversing out, or if it is too late just keep going (see roadblock, below) or if stopped try and talk your way through.

  Don't turn off your vehicle, even if instructed. Have your handgun ready to shoot through the door at the questioner that approaches your window if you can't talk or bribe your way through. There will likely be others standing by covering with weapons and any ITCP worth its salt will be covered by fire from a concealed position. If you do have to shoot, go to extreme violence instantly. Initially covertly, then openly, shoot out through the body of the vehicles and accelerate out of there, firing as you go.

  Note: as a general rule, you won't be driving about with weapons protruding out of the windows of your vehicles. That is simply not cool. You will look like an Iraqi police car. Don't do it.

  Manned Roadblocks: Avoid. If you are caught by one, it is effectively in ITCP, but you don't know the intention. It could be a roadblock set up by a civil defense group or militia defending a town or area. They will be suspicious and wary but they may or may not be hostile. The key issue is that depending on the strength of the physical roadblock, you may or may not be blocked from forward movement. Be aware of the use of vehicles to pull out and block you in from the rear, closing the trap. This is why keeping a tactical bound between vehicles is a good idea, so your whole convoy is not trapped. If you cannot move forward, you may have to reverse out: and clearly if you can avoid driving through a roadblock manned by goons with guns, then don’t. Think outside the box: if the ITCP personnel are not that imaginative, they may have blocked the road but there may be ways to drive around the block and continue forward, if you need to.

  You may also be able to use your vehicle as a weapon and drive at the enemy team members as you do this. If the block is made up of light enough vehicles, and your vehicle is fairly powerful, then you can push the block out of the way by slowing down into low gear, aiming for the corners of the vehicles, and pushing your way through. Whether you end up going forwards or rearwards out of block, then whichever vehicles are outside the X will be providing covering fire to those still inside and trying to get out.

  If you don't spot the roadblock early enough to totally avoid it and you end up getting too close, try and avoid actually pulling up to the roadblock. It is better to stop a little short, with maybe just the first vehicle at risk. You can then reverse out. If they open fire then the passenger can shoot back through the windshield as the vehicle is reversing. Reversing can also be used as a tactic if you inadvertently pull up to the block. It may be your option if they seem hostile and there is no way forward. So, reversing will give you some protection from your engine block and will avoid either splitting your convoy or having the whole convoy have to follow you through the block, possibly under fire. Remember that as you take avoiding action, probably stopping short and reversing out, your CAT vehicle can pull up and provide fire support to suppress the roadblock as you move.

  Unmanned Roadblocks: Avoid. You don't of know if the roadblock/obstruction is actually manned or booby-trapped, perhaps with a well concealed ambush. Consider that an ambush in a post event scenario will be set for a reason. A manned roadblock is set to either extort with robbery or tolls or to deny access to a defended area. An unmanned roadblock will possibly just be abandoned, or it will be there to slow down or stop you to allow an ambush from a concealed position off the road. It is more likely that some form of obstruction will be used in the road to slow you down prior to the enemy initiating the ambush: they probably will not have (but consider that they may have) the capability to initiate an ambush with an IED and thus stop your vehicles with that.

  They therefore have to sacrifice the covert possibilities of an IED or mine for an obstruction, otherwise how to stop you simply driving through the ambush site? If you have to transit past an obstruction, use bounding over-watch, observe the area before moving, and try and find alternative ways around, even as simple as crossing the median to the other roadway (if a dual highway) and travelling against the probably non-existent traffic for a little while. Think outside the box.

  Ambush - Static: If an ambush is set right, you won't know you are in it until you are fired upon. You also should not be able to get out alive. However, we rely on friction, the mistakes of others and the limitations of their tactical abilities and resources to find ways through the gaps to survive in a combat situation. Get out of the ambush and return the enemy fire where you can positively identify (PID) the enemy. More will be covered on specific drills below.

  Ambush - mobile: It may be that an ambush is not purely static and will incorporate mobile elements, whether that is just moving vehicles to block you into the killing area. It may also be that has no static ambush element and is just in the form of vehicle(s) chasing you and trying to run you down. Remember that you can fire out of your vehicles, either through the windshield or the rear window. Try not to let the attack turn into a breakneck chase where you are using speed to get away and risk crashing and losing it all. Move away at a steady pace and use firepower to attempt to break contact; fire into the cab of the chasing vehicle in order to kill or deter the enemy.

  The rear CAT vehicle will not allow the pursuing vehicle past and will block them from threatening the protected vehicles in the center of your convoy. If you are unable to stop them by fire, try to use some useful ground such as a bend in the road to break contact, pull into a likely location, and dismount into fire positions where you can really ‘light up’ the chasing vehicle, perhaps as it comes around a bend. This is where you could use your chase or CAT vehicle to stop and set a snap ambush while the protected vehicles speed away out of the contact area to a safe rally point.

  If you are moving as a three vehicle convoy and you are pursued by attacking enemy vehicle(s), then don't let them make you speed up to crash / disaster speed. Keep a vehicle, such as your rear chase vehicle, between the enemy and your central protected vehicle(s): this vehicle will be raining accurate fire into the cab(s) of the pursuers. That may stop them. If it does not, then send your front vehicle only speeding ahead to a suitable snap ambush site, and have them dismount into fire positions. When the chase comes round the corner, they will let your vehicles pass and hammer the pursuers with accurate fire, hopefully allowing you to break contact. The convoy can stop further down the road to RV with the snap ambush vehicle(s).

  Urban Areas: if possible, avoid any sort of urban area. This would include small towns as you transit though the countryside. There will no doubt be increased population, mobs, gangs or defense forces, and an increased risk of ambush.

  Mob: Any situation where there are crowds can be extremely dangerous to your convoy. It does not take much to crowd in a vehicle and when that happens, your options are very limited. You could go kinetic but if you are truly being mobbed the people may not actually be able to get away from you so although you may kill a large number, they may have no option but to tear you apart to save themselves as the ones on the outside try to push in. Again, avoid. If you find yourself in some sort of flash mob that poses a risk, then try and keep the vehicles going. All doors locked and windows up. There is a fine line between inciting mob violence and getting out of there. If the mob is focused on you, is trying to get into or onto the vehicles, then you have no choice but to try and keep going and when necessary open fire to get people off or away from your vehicles.


  Trick or Con: this could take many forms and may be the precursor to some sort of ambush or heist. Think of the old classic fake car accident, or maybe the attractive hitchhiker or distraught mom by the side of the road. Maybe even a stroller with or without baby pushed under your wheels as you are moving through. Don't think it would happen? Think about ‘crack mom’. Essentially, the bad guys will think up any sort of trick or con where they can get you to stop, get you off guard, and take advantage of you. Charity is one thing but be aware. Hungry looking kids may be sent to tug on your heart strings, any number of things. If you are going to stop, do so under your own terms. Be aware, observe and assess the situation, try to read people, and ensure you have security.

  Counter-Ambush Drills: Consider the following for vehicle mounted counter ambush drills. The following are proven techniques for various contact situations and outcomes. They can be modified as appropriate to the threat and vehicle number/type employed. They can be viewed as templates to be adapted as necessary. The following factors need to be considered and planned for as part of vehicle drills. SOPs adapted to your situation will dictate how you utilize these drills:

  Casualties: Casualty treatment and movement will severely hamper the smoothest of break contact drills. Have a plan for casualties.

  Communications: Where possible, install some sort of radio communication between vehicles. This can be simple VHF radios. You can install a vehicle kit that everyone will hear on load speaker, and/or individual radios carried on personal equipment with earpieces and mikes. The personal radios will go with you when dismounted and also if you have to abandon the vehicles, so there are definite advantages to this approach.

  ‘Cross-Decking’: The rapid movement of personnel, casualties and equipment from an immobilized vehicle to a rescue / extraction vehicle. This drill needs to be practiced and ‘grab bags’ prepared to facilitate the process. The nature of cross-decking means that the extraction vehicle will end up overloaded as it leaves the killing area. However, that can be dealt with and practiced for, and further distribution of personnel can happen at a rally point out of enemy contact.