by Max Velocity
The subject of aerial thermal/FLIR observation and targeting is covered extensively as part of the story line of ‘Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises’ – my educational tactical novel.
Getting into position: ideally the place you will take your shot from will have a covered approach into which you can bug out afterwards or if compromised. An example would be coming up behind a ridge or along a ditch. You may have to be prepared to conduct a ‘stalk’ such as a sniper does by low crawling at the pace of a snail through cover and concealment. You have to give thought as to how you will get out once the place goes hot.
The concepts of enfilade and defilade will go a long way to help you. Enfilade is a side shot, from the flank. It is preferably taken from a defilade position. Defilade basically means being behind a terrain feature (even a small one) where you cannot be observed by the enemy until they are in your target area. Imagine that the enemy is using a track. You get into position to over-watch the track from a small draw running down to the track which provides cover to each side (correctly, defilade just needs to be to one side, the direction the enemy is coming from). This means that you have reduced your sectors of observation of the track, but you are protected from observation and fire from any enemy not directly in front of you on the track that faces your draw.
When the enemy moves along the track and into your sector of fire, you take an enfilade shot and then bug out back along the draw. Because you are alone, the lack or observation and early warning may be a problem but you could have two positions: be on the side of the draw observing over the lip and then move down and into position once you see the enemy coming.
When in position be aware of your thermal signature and the need for general concealment. See 'thermal poncho' or use a ghillie suit which will hide your thermal signature very well due to the thickness, just don’t try and move very far in it. Simply getting behind solid cover will block your heat signature, but beware of your head peering over the lip.
Logistics: you will need to consider the need to sustain yourself while you are out. This will mean rations and water. You will need to carry a patrol pack but keep it light as possible and consider caching it short of your firing point. You obviously can’t use white light or anything less than shielded pin prick flashlight while you are out and you can’t have a fire to cook or heat water. Consider what rations you will carry, for energy only. If you are out for a time and you do cook on a camp stove or similar, then you will need to pick a position for that, conceal your spoor, and then move on before considering stopping to rest or stay the night.
That reminds me that anytime you stop you should observe you back trail for a time to pick up if you are being followed. With a bigger force that may be in the form of a hasty ambush but in the case of one man you will want to just observe and slip away in a different direction.
Anything you do out there that creates any visual sign or smell could compromise you. You don’t want to smoke, spit gum, clean your teeth, use deodorant or anything that is a non-natural smell. You will need to be careful of any sign you leave, such as clearing leaves/brush to sleep. Carry out anything you defecate in a zip-lock bag along with any paper you use. Urinate somewhere that it will not leave an obvious stain. Clearly don’t leave trash.
Administration: you will need to wear and carry the right gear for the environment, whether that is snow covered hills or hot Louisiana swamp. Think about suitable clothing for the environment. A dry set of clothing and a change of socks: this applies to both cold and jungle environments. You won’t be doing anything elaborate for a camp, you will be on ‘dirty patrol’ and ‘travel light, freeze at night.’ If you do sleep it will be after crawling into a deep bit of brush. Carry some light sleeping gear, your thermal poncho and perhaps a thermally insulated ground mat.
You will need sufficient food and water. How will you resupply water? From a creek? Then use puri-tabs to purify it in your canteen, or a purification straw.. You will need sufficient batteries for whatever equipment you have with you, such as night vision etc.
Wear appropriate camouflage: white sheeting in the snow, face cam cream for in the woods, hunting or military camo clothing are examples. Be aware of your equipment and tape it down or pack it away to prevent rattle and shine. Wear your gear squared away so it is not hanging off you and put retaining lanyards on anything you get in and out of your pockets such as compass etc. Give thought to how you gear up, with an essential survival load in pockets, then any kind of tactical vest, then your patrol pack, so if you have to dump any of it you will first have your tactical vest and then at a minimum some survival gear on your person.
One of the arguments people bring up with the stealth thing is that it allows you to do away with any form of body armor or plate carrier and also reduce the amount of ammunition you are carrying. It depends on your mission, and your personal load is just that, it’s a personal thing. Just consider that with a plate carrier it may save you if you walk into a contact or things go pear shaped for any reason. It also provides a good base for carrying magazine pouches, and you can never have enough ammo if things go wrong! But yes, balance gear against weight and the need for stealth and to get in and out of your shoot position: stripping down and leaving stuff in a cache behind the objective is one way around this, best of both worlds. That ties in with a basic load on your person in case you are pushed away from the cache.
When carrying out the mission, be aware how the scene will change once you have put one of the enemy down, and the need for you to escape from the firing point. Think putting a stick in a hornets nest! You also need to know what means they have for QRF to follow up and detect you. That is one of the areas where counter-thermal comes in. You need a covered route out of the firing point and a rapid move back to pick up any cached gear before following a covered route out of the objective area. Then take a different route back. You need to rapidly evacuate the contact area before falling back into a more steady patrol pace and awareness of your surroundings. Consider the need to set up hasty ambush or booby traps on your back trail and also not going directly back home, in case you lead the bad guys there.
You need to have discussed with your home base what they will do if you are wounded captured or killed. They may never know, you simply may not return. Depending on the proximity of the AO to your base and how well that retreat is hidden they may feasibly stay in palace. Alternately, you may set time limits after which they will bug out via a series of emergency RVs, staying a certain time at each one. It may be that you simply stumble back into your house wounded. Or you may be dead in the woods or strung up from a lamp post. What then?
Clearly if you are going to engage in such operations you need to steel yourself for the implications. It’s not a game. Big boys rule apply. To take the step to move from a defense in place of your retreat to an active act of going out to target the bad guys will be based on an assessment of the threat and the best way to counter it. You would not take such a move lightly, but the conduct of this notional paramilitary marauder gang will determine the best response for tactical self-defense.
Note I have not even covered the need to be able to actually hit the enemy with a shot from an effective weapon system! It just seemed too obvious to state, but it does need to be stated. Your rifle needs to be zeroed and effective at the range you intend to use it against the intended targets. You may carry two rifles, a hunting rifle slung on your pack and an AR-15 style for while you are patrolling and for closer range self-defense. Think about how best to do that. Train and have the competence to take the shot. and score a hit.
I have not covered everything, but that’s a good introduction.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TACTICAL USE OF VEHICLES
Some of these tactics have been touched on earlier in the book. There is a difference to vehicle tactics used when perhaps initially bugging out to a retreat or moving with your family post-event, to a situation where you are using vehicles tactically. This chapter is primarily
concerned with using vehicles tactically as part of your operations post-event, and will form an additional capability to add to dismounted tactics. It is important to note that all the principles that apply to dismounted tactics still apply to vehicle tactics.
There is a big difference between armored and unarmored vehicles. Unarmored vehicles are inherently very vulnerable. Using vehicles will greatly increase your capability in terms of range, speed and load, but they will not provide protection from small arms fire and they will be restricted to routes available. Armored vehicles will give you the same capabilities and disadvantages but they will be far less vulnerable to enemy fire. So, vehicles will both enhance and decrease your mobility, and they will vary in terms of the protection they provide. Thus, it is important to incorporate and deploy vehicles as part of your operations with careful thought given to their capabilities and how best to utilize them to enhance your effect.
If you have unarmored vehicles then you should give careful thought to how you will utilize them tactically. It is not a good idea to fight from an unarmored vehicle if exposed to enemy direct fire, and therefore creating an unarmored technical has limitations. When using unarmored vehicles you should think more in terms of using them for their speed, load carrying ability and ability to increase your tactical mobility over suitable ground.
However, plan to deploy from the vehicles and fight from cover, rather than from the back of the vehicle. An exception would be when you can site a vehicle ‘hull down’ to allow a machine-gunner on the vehicle to engage from dead ground with the body of the vehicle concealed by the ground.
A simple example would be the use of pick-up trucks to patrol an area, perhaps conducting GDA patrols. You can have riflemen sitting in the back and the roof of the cab can be used to steady a support machine-gun. Unless the vehicle can be placed in cover, if contacted by enemy the personnel should dismount from the vehicle to engage the enemy and the vehicle itself should be driven into the nearest available cover. If you are using pick-up or other types of trucks, then rig up seats in the center of the truck bed, facing out, for your patrol members, rather than having them face in. This way they can observe and potentially return fire as they are being driven around.
You can consider armoring vehicles yourself, if you have access to some steel and the ability to cut and weld. A standard type production B6 (a designation of protection level) armored vehicle is perhaps not ideal as a fighting vehicle anyway, because the armored glass will be degraded by continued enemy fire and you cannot fire out from the inside of most production armored ‘suburban’ type vehicles.
You can create a fighting vehicle out of a pick-up truck by placing additional steel plate to cover/replace areas such as the side panels of doors, the engine block, the windshield, and to up-armor the truck-bed to protect carried troops or a pintle-mounted support weapon. If you do this, then you will increase the survivability of the vehicle and allow it to be taken into more hostile fire environments, and thus perhaps allow its use as a mobile fire support base (or machine-gun nest). You will need to consider run-flat tires. Don’t forget dump-truck style trucks with armored sides! If you can get hold of one of these, armor the cab and install some weaponry and personnel in the back, then you have a formidable armored personnel carrier (APC) that will be able to do some serious damage.
You can also consider military vehicles that may or may not be available to you post-event, it really depends on the nature of the situation. Any Reserve or National Guard location has a motor pool and in there will be parked trucks (LMTV type) and Humvees. Most of the Humvees will be unarmored but they don’t require an ignition key and would work great as general use vehicles, with usually a trailer parked behind them. There will usually be at least one or two armored vehicles and they usually just require cutting a padlock to get in. If you can also get into the armory then you will be able to grab support weapons to mount in the turret. An Army center will also have a whole bunch of other useful stuff such as fuel cans, MRE supplies and medical gear. If you could get into an abandoned Reserve Center and bring with you some entry tools, you would be able to do some very useful foraging.
If you have some tactical type vehicles available, preferably with some form of armor on them, then you can boost your operational capability. One of the most useful ways to employ vehicles is as a Quick Reaction Force (QRF). This can be very useful when conducting some sort of area defense where the QRF can rapidly move to a location carrying troops and if armored the vehicles themselves can be used as mobile firing positions. This will give you the capability for rapid reinforcement and maneuver. The following are ways in which tactically employed vehicles can be utilized in the various operational phases:
Patrolling: Both range and sustainability can be increased for patrols if vehicles are employed. Vehicle mounted patrols can be utilized on their own or as part of a foot and vehicle combination, perhaps utilizing the satellite type patrolling as outlined under dismounted tactics. Vehicles increase tactical mobility, which is the ability to move about your tactical area, unless they are employed in an area that is not suitable to vehicle travel.
If you have robust vehicles and the terrain is suited, then vehicles need not be employed on just roads or trails, but they can also move across country with care taken not to get them stuck in difficult areas. You will need to give consideration to vehicle logistics, including carriage of fuel and spares. Vehicles can be used to allow longer distance patrolling and also the carriage if heavier weapons systems if you have them available.
You can move to an area in vehicles to a muster location, which is like a patrol base for vehicles, and then leave a guard force in place while moving on foot to accomplish a patrol. You can also give consideration to employing different types of vehicles, such as ATVs, horses, bicycles and pack mules to increase load carrying ability, tactical mobility and range. Vehicles can also be used imaginatively when patrolling, such as to aid you in establishing TCPs by blocking roads and providing mounting locations for covering weapon systems.
Offensive Operations: some of the applications for vehicles in the attack are similar to the employment under certain types of offensive patrolling. If you have heavier weapons then you can carry the weapons and additional ammunition in vehicles. You can also extract casualties in vehicles and conduct resupply of the troops. An ATV with trailer is very useful for distributing ammunition to dismounted troops and also extracting casualties.
If you have heavy weapons systems such as machine-guns and mortars with heavy ammunition then you can move them in vehicles to a fire support location before carrying out a deliberate attack. If you have vehicles that are armored and set up as ‘technicals’ then they can actually become your fire base, if perhaps you can maneuver them to a location where they can bring fire down on the enemy. Alternatively, use vehicles to carry personnel and equipment close to the fire support location and pack it in from there.
Defensive Operations: the main utility in defense it to use tactical vehicles as a QRF to rapidly reinforce and counter-attack the enemy. You will be able to rapidly deploy personnel and firepower across your defensive area. If your retreat area is more extensive than a simply house retreat with garden, then you should utilize these hobo armored vehicles to move about and reinforce as necessary.
Contact Drills: For an unarmored move then even though the purpose of the patrol may be offensive, there is little utility in vehicles trying to fight it out on the X. Vehicles should rapidly move off the X to rally and cover as per the drills covered for moving protected personnel. The difference might be that infantry personnel riding in the vehicles may be dropped off into cover to fight and assault the enemy and the vehicles will move to a rally or muster point close to the action, where they can support as necessary, deploy any heavy support weapons or assist with the conduct of resupply or casualty extraction.
For ‘hobo’ type armored tactical vehicles with mounted weapons systems there is increased survivability and although th
ey should not stay on the X simply for the sake of it, they have an increased ability to maneuver on the enemy and provide support with their mounted weapon systems. Therefore, hobo armored tactical vehicles should maneuver to fire support locations to support any assault by the infantry component onto the enemy positions.
In all cases where the patrol is not designed to fight, then whether armored or unarmored the vehicles will employ break contact drills and conduct bounding over-watch to escape the killing area and rally prior to making further moves. The difference here between armored vehicles and unarmored vehicles will be the increased survivability of both personnel and the vehicle itself provided by the armor, and also the increased ability to return fire, in particular if you have mounted weapons systems in the truck beds.
Halts: you must use your imagination to adapt dismounted tactics to fit the use of vehicles, whichever type you are using. It will be harder to move vehicles off the road to concealed patrol bases but you will be able to find ways to conceal your patrol base. You can circle vehicles to provide a harder perimeter or you can use an alternative formation such as a box or if space is tight perhaps on a small trail then you can use a linear formation.
Ensure that when parking vehicles you always reverse them in to face out (i.e. ‘combat parking’ - no ‘nosy’ parking) so that they can move out in a hurry if needed.
You can use the mounted weapon systems on ‘technicals’ and man them as sentry positions.
If you are stopping you can temporarily rest in the cab and truck beds of vehicles or you can set up your patrol admin base within the vehicles and string up tarps, even off the side off vehicle: but make sure that you use the same battle discipline and the vehicles are ready to fight from and move at short notice.