by Max Velocity
By means of example, I have commented before about the preppers great fear of being targeted at their property by a sniper. It was a similar thing with GDA patrols. There are other things that you can do to help that are beyond the scope of this article - vision screens etc. - but one thing that you should remember is that the terrorist in Northern Ireland is not like the terrorist in the Middle East. He is not a fanatic and does not want to die. Similarly, anyone targeting you post-collapse also does not want to die. One of the conditions that was required before an attack in Northern Ireland was that the terrorist would be able to successfully conduct the attack (clearly invariably a hit and run style attack to kill/main, not to seize ground) and GET AWAY. Many attacks were never prosecuted because of the inability of the bad guy to identify the locations, activities or intent of all the members of the GDA patrol. If the escape route is not confirmed clear, it is no-go. Therein lays the weakness and conversely the key to the tactics to defeat them.
I also cover 'Satellite Patrolling' in [this manual], which again is not a conventional patrolling technique and evolved for this express purpose - to have multiple teams all moving on an axis, establishing overwatch and the like. This means that the guy with the sniper rifle, or the trigger man on the IED, will not press the button on the bomb unless he knows where all your teams are and can be sure that his egress route is clear. This also goes bigger than the simple GDA patrol, to where there will be other patrolling activity going on in depth, in general disrupting enemy freedom of movement, and making it increasingly likely that they will be caught in a dragnet after initiating an attack. Such sophistication of operations will be largely outside the scope for a prepper group.
What does this mean for the prepper? If you have a retreat location, or wherever you are holed up, whether that be remote rural or even urban, you need to move yourself away from the purely defensive mindset. If you end up having to move locations, or forage, then you had better be familiar with tactical movement/patrolling either dismounted or in vehicles, or a combination. If you are not moving location, you need to consider the idea of GDA style local security patrols. This would involve moving out within a smaller footprint, probably no more than a kilometer or two from your location depending on whether it is rural or urban and depending on the available fields of fire for weapons such as sniper rifles to target your location.
If you are not out there and around and about your land, then what is to stop the guy moving into a hide and waiting for you to come out of your cabin in the morning, and putting one through your chest?
But numbers is a problem you will say! Yes, it may very well be. The kind of light infantry style patrols that I talk about really rely on small teams to accomplish. So yes, numbers are an advantage. TRAINED numbers. But it may just be husband and wife and the kids at your retreat. And the tomatoes need growing. Well, if you are to go out, then you need to protect the home base. For a family, the wife needs to be back at the cabin protecting it and the kids. The husband (or the other way around, if that is the way it is for you, for whatever reason) needs to be conducting random security patrols around the property and AO. This is where you will want to consider force multipliers, which are largely outside the doctrine of a military FM, such as trained dogs to help with early warning/defense or even the actual patrolling activity itself.
Now, such GDA patrols are only limited by your imagination. You don't want to be walking around the same perimeter trail at the same time every day. You can even limit the actual movement that you do on these patrols, in favor of greater observation. If you have suitable ground, then move on a covered route and set up temporary observation positions covering approaches or potential hide areas that enemy may use. If you do so, there is great potential for disrupting any planned attack on your location, and at least getting early warning. Yes, it will take you away from tending the tomatoes. That's what kids and elderly relatives are for, right? And the XBox won't work post-collapse anyway.
A possible example is if you are holed up in an urban area, perhaps a largely vacant high rise. GDA patrolling here would take on a different form - open streets are potential killing areas for snipers, so you will have to learn to creep about through ratlines in buildings, sewers and the like. Patrolling here would also be different. It would be more like movement between vantage points, or observation posts if you like. You would creep through routes you had made within the buildings, using stairwells and holes smashed in apartment walls for example, to various OPs you had established. Or just various vantage points. You could then observe from these and then move on, remaining concealed and out of the open streets. If you had more numbers, you could then think about establishing permanent OPs covering approach routes to your building and then be the ones covering the streets with potential fire. Potential fire that would only be used on positively identified hostiles.
A Note on the freedom fighter/terrorist thing: There is a line between being a resistance fighter, attacking targets that are considered legitimate enemey elements, and conversely detonating huge bombs in market places, murdering and mutilating innocent people going about their business. If the hammer falls here, there are two things that I will not do:
1) Engage in terrorist activities. I am prepared to fight a foreign or domestic enemy utilizing unconventional warfare tactics. I will not, for example, detonate bombs indiscriminately; I will never be a terrorist.
2) I will not pack my kit and ship out to fight with the Resistance if my family is not in a protected location, secure from reprisals. How many of you have thought about that?
Post Patrol Actions
On returning to base it is not a case of dumping your gear and racking out for a few hours. A debrief and AAR will be conducted. The debrief will be for commanders and any personnel performing an intelligence or collation function to gather information from the patrol members. Every person is a sensor and may have valuable information. The AAR is for the patrol to assess the conduct of the operation and improve as necessary. Administration will then be a priority (“First my weapon then myself.”) with cleaning of weapons and gear taking place to ensure that gear is ready to go for the next task, then feeding before release to personal admin and rest time.
After Action Review: the AAR process can be pretty detailed but at its basic it is a mechanism to determine what went right, what went wrong, and to incorporate any lessons learned into future operations. It should not be a personal criticism session and criticism should be constructive. A simple way to do it is to look at first ‘sustains’ followed by ‘improves’ and then a positive summary. Sustains are things that went well and should be continued, improves are things that were not so good and need to be worked on. Leaders can then incorporate this into future missions. For instance, it may be that the AAR highlights the need for greater concentration on a certain aspect during rehearsals, which can be incorporated for the next mission.
Patrol Equipment
Let’s take a moment to consider the type of equipment that will need to be carried on patrol. This will move the discussion on a little from the equipment and profile considerations that we already covered earlier in the manual. There are many factors here, such as whether you will be operating from vehicles, always dismounted, or a mixture.
If you are out tactically patrolling them the assumption is that there is no longer any necessity to appear non-military or covert; the only covertness required is the tactical covertness and desire to remain unseen by the enemy. Therefore, at this point you are effectively a soldier. You will need to consider that there is a requirement for camouflage and concealment but not necessarily uniformity. Therefore, you may be wearing camouflage, but for its concealment properties not necessarily to appear uniform.
You may also decide that uniformity is desirable, but they are not necessarily one and the same thing. Your patrol team may be camouflaged but wearing a mixture of styles and even just drab clothing – this may also be a more realistic view as time goes on, maybe as m
ore people come into your group, and also as clothing wears out and availability diminishes.
We already discussed that if you are sitting in vehicles, you will need to minimize the equipment on the rear of your belt. For vehicles, either a light belt with the pouches to the side on your hips works, or a chest/vest rig works very well. Temperature and climate are an issue here and it may be that for long term operations you don’t want to be wearing body armor or you want to minimize the equipment on your torso. For extended patrolling and operating in the heat a full belt rig combined with a daypack and pack is the best way to go.
Body armor is either not worn or carried in your pack and worn when the threat increases (i.e. intent to carry out an offensive operation) or worn at all times at which point you may as well wear your pouches on top of the body armor, or a combination of belt and armor pouches. You may also want to consider a plate carrier for extended operations; these do not incorporate the soft body armor vest that covers your torso and makes you really sweat, it just incorporates plates, which will make you sweat less but will provide less protection. Remember that it is only the plates that provide the protection from high velocity rifle rounds anyway, usually the soft armor provides protection against fragmentation and handgun rounds (types depend on the specification of the vest).
If you are acting as dismounted infantry then you will be well served with a complete belt rig and yoke/suspenders. You have the option of wearing or not wearing your body armor, but the belt rig will remain in place. This is an old school thing, because currently the military wears body armor at all times in hostile environments and the pouches go onto the armor, so there is no need for belt rigs unless you wear both to distribute the load across your body more.
A belt rig, or battle belt, will be squared away and tight with no pouches hanging off or generally looking like a cluster. You will probably have rifle ammo pouches on your left hip (if right handed), with handgun ammo pouches on the front; Handgun holster on the right with IFAK behind that. Behind those pouches will be a canteen pouch and on the back will be a butt pack or alternatively a separate couple of pouches with 24hours worth of emergency food and any spare equipment.
You will also carry a daypack and a rucksack. The daypack should be able to be strapped under the lid of the rucksack when you are carrying the ruck. You will consider carrying on your belt rig/person something along the following lines:
Rifle magazines x 8
Handgun Magazines x 4
Radio if carried
IFAK
Canteens x 2 and/or Camelbak replacing 1 Canteen
Water purification tablets
24 hours of rations – emergency type
Solid fuel burner/cooker
Knife or machete
Rifle cleaning kit
Spare socks
Foot powder
Tactical orders and quick reference guide
Model making cards
Notebook
Bug repellant
Cam stick
Comms cord 50 yards (550 cord)
Spoon, ‘racing type’, secured
Compass
Map in case
To set up a standard ALICE belt rig system with suspenders (yoke), a suggestion is as follows, looking at the belt laid out flat and from left to right from the rear of the belt:
Handgun magazine pouch x 3 (3 pouch combo).
ALICE 5.56 AR ammo pouches x 2. 6 mags. Situated on left hip.
Canteen pouch, canteen with metal mug. Puritabs.
Admin pouch. Rations. Solid fuel stove. Commo cord. Basic weapon cleaning supplies.
Fit in another AR mag pouch somewhere if you can
IFAK
Belt/sheath knife/bayonet
Handgun holster
Leatherman if you want in its pouch.
Note that with the exception of small pouches such as pistol magazines, equipment should not be further forwards than your hips. The pouches should be well secured and situated on the belt. Using some kind of belt pad or hip pad is ideal because it makes the gear more comfortable, reducing chafe from pouches, and also increases the size of the belt so you can get more pouches on it. Having the pouches off your front will allow you to get into the prone position and crawl.
Also, the only time in your life that you will be allowed to ‘sag’ anything (most definitely including your pants) is with this belt: don’t have it up by your belly button but have it situated over the outside of your hips, a little cowboy style. This is a better place for weight distribution and rather than cinching the belt in to your belly situating it over your hips will allow you to fit more equipment on it, and have better access to the ammo pouches. Distributing the weight on your hips is more efficient and will be supported by the suspenders.
Along with the equipment you carry on your belt or vest rig, anything that you carry on your person should be secured with 550 paracord so that you don’t lose it. That includes your racing spoon, very importantly.
Camelbaks/hydration bladders are great; carry them if you have one. Carry a canteen or two and puritabs also when out on patrol; you may find it easier to fill from available water sources and sterilize with the purification tablets than you would with a bladder. You can always use the canteens to fill the bladder.
If you carry a metal mug and solid fuel stove (or gas camping stove in your daypack) then this is ideal for making hot beverages, which can be a morale winner if you are partial to a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Carry the required beverage in single serving packages with sachets of powdered milk and sugar to taste. If you carry MRE entrees with the heater, then that is another alternative.
If you are eating any other kind of food, such as ‘boil in the bag’ or dehydrated rations, then you can use the metal mug and solid fuel stove to boil up the water. With boil in the bag rations, it is really convenient because you can heat them up in the mug and then use the water to make a hot drink. If you have to go ‘hard routine’ then do so, but ‘any fool can be uncomfortable’ and if you can plan your activities to include a tactical stop during daylight you will be able to get at least one hot meal and drink in per day.
In your daypack you will carry additional items that you can’t fit on your belt. Suggestions:
Spare clothing
Warm clothing
Waterproof clothing
Spare batteries
Water
Food
Additional ammunition
Mission specific gear
Binoculars or surveillance equipment
Entrenching tool
In the ruck you will have:
Additional spare clothing
Dry footwear
Sleeping system
Tarp
Rations
Additional medical supplies and aid items, plus medications
Wash kit/wipes plus tactical small towel
Any other administrative equipment you need.
A note on chafing and clothing: consider the type of pants that you are wearing, along with your underwear, and how well they fit. It is common to get chafing between the thighs which can rapidly become debilitating. You can use Vaseline between your thighs. Another method is to wear ‘spandex’ or ‘lycra’ shorts, of the tight fitting thigh length style. These get criticized for heat retention but in fact they are ideal for reducing chafing, particularly in hot humid environments where you are doing a lot of walking and where chafing can result in infection. So, the place where you may think they are too hot to wear is precisely where they may be most useful – i.e. places like the jungle or any hot environment.
In terms of clothing, your environment may be hot and there is no real reason why you can’t wear a pair of decent combat boots and a pair of cargo shorts. In places where bush wars were common, such as Rhodesia and South Africa,
wearing of shorts was very common (even though it was the 70s and some of those shorts are worryingly short and tight from a modern perspective….). However, if you wear shorts and short sleeve shirts and t-shirts, consider the threat from biting insects and you may wish to review the clothing choice around dusk where long pants and rolled down shirts will keep the bugs off better.
‘Actions On’
‘Actions On’ covers a host of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that you will adapt and adopt to suit your circumstances. These actions on SOPs need to be drilled so that they become standard and you can then brief them in orders ‘as per SOPs’. Actions on cover a host of conceivable situations and no doubt they will have to be adapted to the situation post-event. The following is a series of standard ones with possible reaction drills:
Halts: the patrol will stop in the designated formation, usually herringbone, and conduct security until either the patrol moves on or alternative instructions comes down the line, such as to drink or eat, at which point this will be done in buddy pairs with one providing security while the other conducts the designated admin. Even when doing admin, that soldier should be looking out of the perimeter, rather than facing in or paying no attention.
Obstacles: this can be a situation where the obstacle is an actual obstacle, such as a river, or it may simply be a vulnerable point (linear danger area, LDA) such as a road that needs to be crossed. Whichever it is, there are basic principles that need to be adhered to but the way the drill is conducted is up to you and you should experiment with the best way of doing it.
If you have to cross an LDA, select a good point where there is maximum cover from enemy observation and potential fire. The principle is that as the formation moves, the lead scout identifies the LDA and calls a halt, passing back the relevant hand signal. Once the hand signal is passed back, the patrol will snap into the drill you have practiced. First, the ‘near bank’ is secured by riflemen covering across the LDA and to the flanks. Then a group will cross and secure the ‘far bank’. Once that is done, the main body will cross and the whole formation will continue.