Contact!

by Max Velocity

  Withdrawal In Contact

  For withdrawal under fire, you change the method. This is very similar to a break contact drill and you will have to fire and maneuver out of your positions and away from the enemy. If you can identify withdrawal routes that incorporate cover and concealment then you will be better off.

  When withdrawing in contact you will move the front elements first, and they will fire and maneuver back with fire support provided by other elements that have appropriate fields of fire. So, this method collapses from the front, rather than leaving the hollow shell of the withdrawal out of contact.

  If you try to use the out of contact method, you will likely have your forward stay behind elements overrun and destroyed. This would work if the circumstances were that you were using a sacrificial rear guard, but then you would be about losing people, which we want to avoid as much as possible. This may be an option of last resort if protected personnel and kids are at stake, and then you need to take notes from the Spartans at Thermopylae!

  When withdrawing in contact, you will need as much fire support as possible, and preferably indirect fire support from in depth at the rear also. You probably won’t have this. You need to attempt to knock the enemy back, give them a bloody nose, in order to create space to move and break contact.

  It may be that a limited counter attack or other offensive operation will work to create this space. Another technique would be, once you had moved off the main position and in order to discourage pursuit, lay a hasty ambush to knock the enemy back with sheer ‘ambush weight’ of fire as they pursue.

  Remember that if you take casualties, you will have to carry them out with you, so have a plan and some equipment to allow you to do this. It may be that you are fighting back to vehicles and can then evacuate in those.

  Exfiltration

  An alternative to your force gradually amalgamating into a single force and moving back as a group would be to use exfiltration. This is simply the reverse of infiltration and would see you splitting your force into smaller elements to make their way separately back to a consolidated RV. This would be useful in an area where there was no ‘front line’ as such and where you see risks of trying to move through hostile territory as a big group. As with infiltration you will have to balance mutual support and strength versus the need for concealment. If you choose to exfiltrate, your elements will break down into smaller elements and move covertly via separate routes to a main RV.

  Vehicles

  Another option to consider with withdrawal, which would be better than a dismounted option if you could pull it off, is to conduct the whole withdrawal in vehicles. This may in effect make the operation more of a break out than a withdrawal, simply because your escape routes options may be minimized, but will amount to much of the same thing except that if you are moving in vehicles it is likely that rather than moving away from the enemy, you are likely to be having to attack towards them to get through, simply because if they are vehicle mounted they will have come in on the roads and will be located on or close to them and seeking to block them. An exception would be if you were lucky enough to have a suitable trail out the back of the property that they had not cut off and allowed you access to the hinterland, and hopefully other navigable trails.

  Break Out

  If you are moving out in vehicles and have to fight through a blocking force, then you will need maximum firepower and protection. This is where armored technical vehicles would come in very useful. What would be excellent if you had one would be some sort of heavy protected vehicle such as a dump truck preferably with a plough on the front.

  You would need to break down into a first moving group and a follow up group. The follow up group would provide fire support for the first moving group, who would break out in armored vehicles with the protected personnel cocooned in some sort of protection. Their job would be to smash through and move away, where elements would then go firm and provide fire support for the second group to mount up and move off.

  You would likely have a protection detail for the protected personnel, who would continue to move to an RV out of contact once they had broken out.

  The remaining two elements would move in vehicles using bounding over-watch to suppress the enemy and move to the RV. If the enemy continues to follow up then suitable ground should be selected for a vehicle mounted ambush to push them back before moving to the RV and getting mobile away from there. Once moving on from there, you are back to vehicle mounted mobile tactics when moving on the roads.

  Alternatively, if you were less well equipped with perhaps unarmored vehicles and perhaps lower in numbers, then you would have to use some form of deception and/or surprise to enable the breakout. Even so, you should do what you can to protect the vehicles, in particular the ones with kids in, with added hobo armor and keeping them low on the floor.

  You would want to consider moving at night with either stealth or a distraction plan, maximum use of smoke, whether from smoke grenade or by burning something, and try to take the enemy by surprise.

  If you have a trained tactical element then perhaps they may be able to conduct a night attack onto the enemy camp while the escaping group prepares to get out in the ensuing chaos. The tactical group will have some plan to escape, whether it be moving to a pick up point or even exfiltration; some of your options will be extreme depending on the nature of the enemy you are facing and it may be that the tactical team has to take a lot of risks in order to give the escaping group the space they need to get out.

  The tactical team will have a plan to survive and hope to do so, but may be against heavy odds. This is an example of the sort of decision you may face, and hard choices will have to be made for the safety and survival of your family.

  Blog Post

  When They Are Hunting You:

  I received the following request:

  "I am wondering if you have any thoughts about defensive tactics if one is being hunted down by men with trained tracking dogs."

  I'm not a subject matter expert on tracking or tracking dogs, but I've done a bit of E & E training as the pursued so I have a few thoughts for you, perhaps a little different from the conventional.

  The first thing is the context of this: the assumption is that you are being hunted by pursuers with tracker dogs, but where are you, who are the pursuers, how many of them are there and what other assets do they have? Well, we can look at a few circumstances on this. Let's assume that you are a small four man patrol that is being tracked in a rural/woodland setting. We can bring in and discuss other assets and how that will impact you as we go further along the scenario.

  Tracker dogs: these are most likely going to be tracking you by ground scent. They may also be able to follow you by scent on the wind, so being downwind is a factor. However, once they pick up your scent they will likely be coming on at the pace of a fast walk. They will be hindered by their handlers - they will not be running free in the woods. If they close with you the handlers may release attack dogs but the tracker dogs will be constrained by the handler.

  It is VERY difficult to interrupt a tracker dog from following your scent. A lot of the usual things you hear about such as walking down a creek do not work, and if they lose you temporarily they will circle till they pick up the scent again. The weak link here is really the handler. Think of the dog like a FLIR imager - it's harder to fool the technology, but it’s easier to fool the operator, right?

  You need to set a pace that will not allow the tracker team to catch you. This means PT. It also means carrying a load that you can move with at a fast walking pace. However, you are still a fighter, and you will very likely have to fight, so make sure you are able to evade carrying your battle belt and assault pack, to allow you to fight, and fight again another day. Worst case, dump the patrol/assault pack - you will already have long ago dumped a full ruck - and continue with your fully equipped battle belt.

  Try and take the pursuit over difficult ground, up steep rocky cliffs, down into ravin
es, change direction, do all of this - so long as you are physically capable of maintaining pace over such ground. PT and determination rules, right? The idea is not so much to follow a route that the dogs will not be able to follow, but more to frustrate the handlers and pursuers. Also, the sort of misdirection that works is confusing the handler so he tries to make the dog go in one direction, sure that you went that way, but the dog wants to go another. There is potential to sow mistrust between dog and handler by doing this.

  If the trackers have dogs then few techniques will be effective. The human handler can be fooled by visual deceptions such as backtracking and jumping off the trail but the dog’s sense of smell won't. Remember the dog is fast but the handler will slow it down, so climbing tall fences, rocky outcrops etc. will slow dog and handler down. Your scent sticks to vegetation so try to find hard stony ground near running water this will make it harder for the dog to track you. Moving through livestock such as cows or sheep can slow the handler and distract the dog. Heavy rain will also help disperse your scent quickly and remember your scent can also be carried on the wind so try to keep downwind of pursuers. Pepper or bear spray on the trail, or rigged as a booby-trap, may help confuse the dog

  So bottom line, all things being equal a dog will follow you until it finds you. Unless you can get to somewhere where you can get away, such as to a vehicle or into an urban area or make the handlers give up the chase. You cannot go to ground and hide in such circumstances, the dogs will find you.

  Human Trackers: if you are being tracked by a human tracker, then you have a lot more options. They will be looking for sign so anything you can do to reduce sign will work. However, remember that a person is clever and just, for example, because you walked in the stream and left no sign, they can check the banks for where you left sign coming out. And just because you thought you had left no sign, even by walking on rocks, you probably did, by moving a rock or similar. A lot of this depends on the skill of the tracker.

  A tracker will also be trying to think like you and anticipate, so they will get a feel of how you are moving and will try and predict where you were likely to go. As with many things, this is where unpredictability helps. If you can put in changes of direction and generally try and confuse the tracker, this will slow them down. Sign (your track) is time sensitive (i.e. water drops, bent but not broken vegetation etc), unless you left, for example, footprints in the mud; so if you can delay them sufficiently you will get away.

  With both trackers and dogs you can try the technique of splitting the group down into smaller and smaller groups. With a four man team break down into two man teams then maybe to individuals. If they don't have the assets they will be forced to pick a trail to follow. With a tracker, but less likely with dogs, you may be successful in hopping off the tail leaving no sign, so the tracker follows on the main trail, but they may then notice the lesser amount of sign. But then they need to make a choice, which will slow them down.

  One of the big mistakes you will make when trying to escape is to allow the terrain to determine your route. You will be scared and tired and you will likely follow easily predicted routes such as valleys. You need to think about changes in direction and cross-graining the terrain. If we move this up a little, from just having a tracker team behind you, then they may have more assets. Worst case is a tyrannical-regime-style hunter-killer force on your tail. This is why you have to be unpredictable.

  A tracking technique used in the southern African bush wars was as follows: the 'terrs' would often infiltrate to conduct an atrocity (like hacking up farming families) and then take speed like drugs to allow them to make a beeline over the border and back to safety. This meant they were predictable. Once a tracker team was on their trail, they could then try and predict the direction. This would allow other tracker teams to go ahead, often on trail bikes, to try and intercept the trail further along. They would look at sign traps such as muddy areas or creek crossings, where there was more likely to be sign left, to try and pick the trail further up. They could then use assets such as fire-force to parachute in ahead of the terrs and set up an ambush/cut off.

  So, if you are being tracked you must move unpredictably and change direction or this will allow a hunter-killer force to move, by road or helicopters, cut-off groups onto your path where they will set up ambushes to trap and kill/capture you.

  One thing you can consider if you are being tracked is the use of booby traps, if you have them pre-prepared. If you have grenades, then it takes a moment to attach one to a tree, tie a tripwire to the pull-ring/pin, stretched across the trail. You may even be able to use a stolen flashbang to do the same - it won't be lethal, but it may put off dogs. If you are able to disrupt the pursuit in such a way, along with splitting your groups into smaller elements, then you have a good chance of getting away. They may end up following one pair or individual, and they may be caught or killed, but that is better than losing the whole team.

  Aerial Thermal Surveillance: It would be useful to know if the enemy has these assets and how quickly they can deploy them, for example getting a police tracker helicopter or a drone up above you. There are two important aspects to this, sort of a conundrum:

  Mobile: if you are moving, which you will have to be if you are trying to get away from a tracker team, then you cannot go static and use methods such as getting in a culvert, or deploying a thermal tarp. Such an action will simply allow the tracker team to close right on top of you, and then you are likely trapped and in a fight. The best you can do when moving in such a way, if there is aerial thermal surveillance, is to use terrain and vegetation masking. This, again, is a balance. It means getting some terrain between you and the sky, and trying to get under the canopy of the trees. However, if you get into a deep ravine, for example, to avoid a drone, then if you continue to follow it you are being predictable and you may well then run into an ambush in the ravine. The best thing to do is use terrain/vegetation masking as best as possible to confuse the operator, not the technology. These devices are not infallible, even though the technology itself is excellent - if the operator loses a visual on you, and you are moving away masked by terrain/vegetation, he will have to scan the area to try and pick you up again. The field of view is not huge so that is harder than you may think. It’s not going to work where there is no terrain or tree canopy, like in the desert.

  Static: If you can get away from the ground pursuit, then you have a chance of holing up and hiding. Get into a place where you can use terrain masking, like in a cave or overhang, deploy a thermal tarp etc. This will disguise you from aerial thermal surveillance so long as they were not tracking you to where you stopped, and there is not a ground team hot on your trail.

  Hasty Ambush: The hasty ambush can be an option of last resort - or it could be an option that you throw in during the pursuit, before perhaps splitting your teams down and moving off in different directions in the confusion. Remember that to conduct a hasty ambush, you have to let the tracker team get close, so you lose any lead you had. You do the hasty ambush by first breaking track and doubling back to cover your track by fire. This means that the tracker team will follow your track until the point at which you broke track. By the time they realize that you broke track, they are already in your killing area and you probably already initiated the ambush. Kill the tracker team, both dogs and personnel, and then break contact in the confusion. You may also want to split your team up at that point.

  Remember, if you manage to kill the dogs, then you have a chance of moving off and getting holed up in a hiding spot, because there are no longer any dogs to track you. You are then only vulnerable to a detailed ground sweep (or FLIR), so make sure you move far enough away to find that good hiding spot to lie up in until the fuss subsides.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CONCLUSION

  There is a considerable amount of tactical information included within this manual and it would take an allocation of considerable amounts of training time to assimilate and train in all
of it. The best advice is to work on the basics and apply the principles that are described to your personal situation. Application of the principles and techniques will allow you to improve your situation or make plans to change it if you assess that as necessary.

  There is certainly a sliding scale described here, from basic tactical movement and use of weapons in self-defense all the way up to company level offensive operations. There is a point at which the techniques move from being something that you will do to protect your family to something bigger, requiring a tactical team of varying size to accomplish tactical operations.

  In the event of a total collapse of society these tactics and techniques will come into their own as a means to allow communities to defend themselves against roving marauders and other threats, even against the neighboring town, community or rampaging gang.

  In the event of total collapse, there will be a time period during which defending your supplies and conducting limited forage will suffice. After that, it may be two seasons before food is able to be grown again and the ‘die off’ is largely complete.

  In order to be able to survive in the long term, you need to be able to do two main things:

  1) Is to be able to survive the short term as the collapse happens and the violence and mass starvation continue; you have to be able to hunker down and defend your family or group while this madness washes over the country. There will be huge die-offs. Ultimately, all but the most avid of food collectors will run out of stored food in the end.