Gunfighting Safetly

Here is another great post by Max Velocity about an important topic we should all know about, and train on. None of us want to hit our friends, or family while in a tactical engagement. So we all need to keep these ideas and concepts in mind while training.

I left in the parts where Max talks about his tactical training because I highly recommend as many of you as can, attend his training. Unfortunately I have not been able to, up to this point, but I am trying to find time to attend, and recommend you do also.

Max Velocity Blog

I wrote the post ‘Buddy Position Awareness‘ on July 28 2015. I’m going to revisit that topic here, particularly in light of the comments I made on a student review yesterday:

If you have been reading the blog lately, you will have seen my post on the development of the Rifle Skills and Combat Team Tactics Classes (‘Adjustments to the Rifle Skills / Combat Team Tactics Lineup‘). We have also scheduled a number of the Combat Rifle Skills classes for those who want a shallower learning curve. We have moved zeroing entirely to the optional Rifle Skills day prior to Combat Team Tactics. This has freed up training time on the Friday of CTT. We have made some adjustments to that square range day to introduce some of the visual concepts early, so that they are not first encountered on the Saturday morning, as part of the introduction to fire and movement. This is done in a somewhat ‘monkey see, monkey do’ format on the square range, to put visuals of safe distances, angles, spacing and such into the mind of the student, so that when they are taken through explanations and rehearsal on the tactical ranges the following day, they have a better reference point. This is working very well so far. We had limited time this past class for this pre-concept training, because we still had to do some check zero, but for future classes the absence of zeroing has been made clear (unless you show up for RS) and we will have more time available.

If you haven’t been paying attention, the CTT class has been dropped from $600 to $500 (3 days), and RS from $200 to $100 (1 day), to allow students to complete the full 4 days of training for the same price as the previous 3 day CTT class. Don’t tell me I never give you incentives to train!

I am going to partially re-post the ‘Buddy Position Awareness‘ post below. Before I do, here is some additional comment:

We have been developing and improving the Combat Team Tactics class over the last three years. It went from a 2 day ‘CRCD” class, to a 3 day CTT class, to the option of making it a 4 day RS/CTT class. We often have to deal with the tendency of students to have past training scars from other ‘tactical’ training classes, and a general theme is the need to move people on from square range focused training to realistic combat training. This is something that we are working hard to achieve with the most effect possible. Does this mean I don’t like square ranges? Of course not, I have two! The point is that the square range should properly be viewed as a part of the progression to live field firing. Much training, in particular the stuff that can be viewed all over YouTube, is both unrealistic and dives into a rabbit hole because it has nowhere to go beyond the square range itself.

This amuses me, along the same lines of dealing with the obvious ‘You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know’ (DKWYDK) comments that I see. It amuses me because the training progression and focus that we work so hard on at MVT actually makes things safer for you to operate in a live fire / combat environment, whereas the focus on the pure (usually close range) target shooting of a square range environment makes it more dangerous. In fact, if this country does ever go to a full collapse shooting war, I’m going to get into a low crawl and simply crawl the hell out of it! It beggars belief the amount of friendly and not so friendly fire casualties that will likely be generated, and people shooting their own families and teams, as everyone is running aimlessly round in a panic.

I’m pulling a video out of the original post and putting it here, by way of an example of this chaos even among trained soldiers on deployment. This is the best example I could find on YouTube. Watch the video below for the first few seconds, and realize how close it came to a friendly fire incident, as the soldier runs across from right to left. After that, there is no safety angle as the helmet cam guy fires over the top of his buddies taking cover behind the low wall. Be prepared for random acts in combat! Unless you have effectively trained in a realistic live fire training environment, which develops an understanding of real world safety angles, you will make mistakes like this. This training should also be backed by solid rehearsal and drills in react to contact.

There a various things we tell students at MVT training. Among them:

•Scan, all the time. Scan means actually scan.
•Get your head out of your weapon.
•It’s not about you, it’s about your buddies.
•It’s not about your personal relationship with Ivan, but knowing where your buddies are first.
•Break that tunnel vision.

What does this even mean? Well if you focus only on square range training, including competition style training, or shot timers, or whatever, then it is all about you, and your target. It is about that personal relationship between you and Ivan (the target). I’ve even heard of training so naval gazing that it is all about filming the shooter and reviewing second by second technique.

Here’s the thing – you only have to shoot SO WELL. There is a limit of accuracy, a balance of speed and effect on target versus perfect technique. Yes, don’t conflate this with an argument about poor shooting being better, because it is not. It is about practical accuracy balanced with the need for relevant training, building situational awareness. If I get rounds on target to protect my team, that accuracy is good enough. If I have no awareness of where my buddies are as this firefight commences, and I put rounds into them instead of the target, as everyone runs around in a disorganized panic, then that is a fail. So it is a balance between individual proficiency and the awareness and ability to operate within and with a team. I’m not making these comments in an unlimited theoretical training time vacuum: Most people have limited training time, and thus the focus on training to become the ultimate-AR-driving-wizard is probably not as useful as spending your time learning how to get rounds effectively on target, take cover, and not kill your buddies while doing so – because if you put rounds into your friends or family, there is no undoing that. That is why you can learn good skills on the square range, but you must progress beyond it to learn the team tactics. Or, your ‘team’ will die, either by enemy or friendly fire, probably both.

This is the reason, precisely, that I harp on about this, and many who have not progressed beyond the square range simply do not understand it. I am trying to explain it here, in this post.

Consider these conceptual points, which may help you understand this:

On a square range, you are already on a firing line. Other firers are to the left and right of you, and the targets are downrange. It is safe. No other firer is within an acceptable safety angle from the muzzle of any other firer’s rifle.

When we teach you team tactics, and we have a 4 man team reacting to effective enemy fire (i.e. an Ivan target exposure) , we are teaching you drills to move from whatever formation you were walking in, to create an immediate firing line, just like on the square range. Thus, as you react, no one firer is within an unsafe angle from any other firers muzzle. Whatever direction the contact comes from, front, left, right, rear, you are adapting into a safe firing line to engage the target(s). This happens when you conduct individual and team RTR drills.

Other safety training, such as active muzzle awareness, how to move with the weapon, “Don’t go faster than you can go,” “Don’t be in a hurry to rush to your death,” “identify cover before you move to it,” head-body-weapon, and other team drills that are taught, are all to reinforce the awareness of what is safe and what is not safe: until you are sure where your buddies are (scan-head-body-weapon) you are not bringing your rifle up to engage the target. This is why we need to break that square range indoctrination of me-target-me-target.

If we are going to maneuver in the face of the enemy, either towards, away (break contact) or to the flank, then we now have to move that firing line. For this, we teach fire and movement (maneuver). Think about this as simply moving segments of the firing line, whether those segments are individuals or buddy pairs, in such as way that we maneuver to where we want to go, while suppressing the enemy, and while never moving into an unsafe position relative to the safety angle of other firer’s muzzles.

Now imagine this: 4 firers lined up on a square range, facing the targets. Maybe quite close, perhaps the firing line is 10 yards from the targets. Imagine there are 10 targets lined up in front of them, running from #1 on the left, thru #10 to the right. The shooters are only 10 yards from the targets and 5 yards from each other, so #1 is off to the left, #10 off to the right, and #5 is directly front in the center of the 4 man line. It’s safe to say that the 4 man line can probably engage #5, and targets to the left and right of #5, without causing any safety angle problems. Those targets are pretty much directly front. Now, if we call target #1, we have a problem. The left shooter can engage, by swiveling (head-body-weapon) to the left and engaging #1. When the other firers do their scan-head, before they even move their body, they will realize that the angle to the left, for them to shoot at #1, is too steep, and that they will be unsafely muzzling firers to their left (i.e. those firers would be at an unsafe angle to their muzzle if they engaged the target). In this case, the only solution is for the line to angle to the left, to create a new firing line aligned on Target #1. If target #10 were called, you get the opposite.

If a buddy engages a target and has not immediately called distance-direction-description, and you are trying to identify it, then you can easily see how he is oriented by looking at the direction of his barrel, and the angle of his shoulders, and thus know what position is safe relative to him before you can even think about bringing your weapon up towards a target you have not even seen yet. Whether you immediately see the target or not, and you want to bring your weapon up, but a buddy is in the way, you have to push left/right/up in order to move him out of your safety angle, and thus allow your weapon to come up.

All of the above seems very obvious, but it is not for those who have been conditioned to the me-target-me-target mindset of much of the shooting sports world. You have to also consider that on a tactical range there is much going on, stress inoculation is part of the objective, and the formation is moving relative to the targets and the ground, and thus it is easy for new shooters to become sucked into the target, tunnel vision, and lose the ability to scan. That what the safety cadre are there for!

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Buddy Awareness & Scanning

There is plenty of talk out there about ‘training,’ but unless you are incorporating professional live fire training into your overall training plan, you will probably not understand, in a practical sense, what I am discussing here. In the same way that it is easy to talk about ‘shoot, move and communicate’ on the internet, but harder to actually conduct it for real. You need to be building real ‘operant conditioning’ via the right training.

Buddy awareness and scanning, seems so simple. However, on training classes we spend a deal of time drilling this into people, and first drilling bad habits out of them. Unfortunately some of these bad habits come from individual focused training on basic shooting and weapons manipulation on the square range. When it’s all about ‘driving your AR’ and your INDIVIDUAL shooting skills, scans can become notional, robotic. This is one of the chief problems with training when it never makes it off the square range: it is an individual sport, not a team activity. This causes big problems when trying to operate as a team in a live fire environment.

At MVT, we run live fire training with movement. This means that shooters are not always ‘on line’ – something that is alien to many who have grown up on solely on ranges with no movement. We have specific safety procedures that will not translate well if I try and describe them here in writing. Suffice to say, there are safety angles and procedures that include mantras such as ‘head-body-weapon,’ ways to move (absolutely no pirouetting, ever), safety angles off your muzzle, and active muzzle awareness. The way weapons are carried and movement is conducted is operational safety, i.e. it translates to real situations when you are on patrol, or moving with weapons. Not ‘over safe’ procedures such as seen on many ranges, which actually end up being less safe (such as moving backwards with weapons). Patrol ready, active muzzle awareness, finger outside trigger guard, safety on at all times except when not engaging the enemy.

Buddy awareness:

This is vital. If a target pops up, the important thing is not to engage the target, but to know where your buddies are before engaging the target. You are always scanning and conducting a version of ‘head-body-weapon.’ The weapon part of the mantra applies equally to ‘ready ups’ when bringing the weapon on to target prior to firing, such as with an RTR drill, or equally to active muzzle awareness if you are conducting the manta as part of a move from one piece of cover to another.

When running training and safety, we are always fighting tunnel vision and students being glued to their sights. It is important to pull your head away from the sights every couple of rounds, to locate your buddies and maintain spacial awareness. This is a hard thing for new shooters to grasp. You need to turn your head towards your buddies and yell in their direction when yelling is needed (i.e. MOVE!) otherwise your yell will be lost into the stock of your weapon. Is your buddy moving to the next cover? Is he beating at his weapon because he has not yet grasped the muscle memory to conduct weapon manipulation under stress? Is he writhing on the ground, bleeding? Is he laying there silent?

Imagine you are lined up with your buddies on the firing line on a square range. Weapons will all be aligned facing down the range to the targets. Shoulders will be roughly aligned, assuming we are adapting dynamic shooting positions, and not ‘blading off’ to the targets. You are now ‘on line.’ Now, in a realistic combat environment it would not matter if you and your buddies were a little misaligned, perhaps due to the positions of cover, and the line was not exactly straight. So long as no one was inside the muzzle safety angle of each others weapons, we are good to go. That’s what happens in fire and movement.

Now, take that target away straight down the range and put one up half-left to the firing line. Because the enemy gets a vote, and will try and flank you. Now, everyone’s weapons and shoulders swing (although they wouldn’t swing, like a turret, they would scan and acquire the target and then go ‘head-body-weapon’) to the left by 45 degrees. This may have an impact on the safety angle. If there are two of you, and you are the right hand guy, then when you acquire the target with ‘head’ and scan, then you will also need to note the location of your buddy. As the angle of the target moves more to the flank, it may be that you cannot bring your weapon up to engage, because your buddy would be within the safety angle of your muzzle. This would mean you would have to ‘push right’ or ‘push up’ depending, in order to clear that safety angle and safely acquire the target. In a dynamic situation, it is always important to note your buddies as you acquire a target, keep both eyes open, and also be ready for when they may make an unpredictable movement, perhaps to adjust their position of cover. If they do this, be ready to drop your muzzle. The key is simply to avoid the herd mentality and keep spread out from your buddies, in order to open up the safety angle. Do not, and we do not allow, people to be firing past each others ears!

It is vital to always maintain awareness of where your buddies are, and to keep the scan going throughout the engagement as positions move and the team fires and moves. If you do not have a shot angle that is not going to potentially kill your buddy, then you need to move.

Scanning:

As alluded to above, scanning is a constant activity. You are looking for cover, for the enemy, for your buddies. It is more important to know where your buddies are than it is to get that shot off. We struggle with ‘square-range-isms’ at MVT, otherwise known as re-training the training scars out of people, acquired from tacticool training. We notice the tendency to try and scan with the weapon glued to the eyeball, or to perform that fake-robotic-square-range-scan. Or to not scan at all, or to just take quick tunnel glances, like to the left, to the center, to the right, down a ‘tunnel’ in the trees.

To Scan:

•Lower the weapon out of your face.
•Get your eye out of the optic.
•If you have a magnified optic, it is OK to use it as a monocular to check out an item of interest, but don’t be glued to it.
•Scan by looking THROUGH the vegetation.
•Scan in a ‘S’ near-middle-far left-center-right.
•Cover your sector!
•Look from your buddy on one side to your buddy on the other side, particularly after an engagement. What is their position and are they OK? Does anyone need to move, including you?

As you move towards the enemy position, or away from it in a break contact drill, you are always looking for your next position of cover. You are always running ‘head-body-weapon’ and practicing active muzzle awareness. You are scanning for your buddies and moving your position as necessary in order to engage the target safely. As you locate your next cover, locate your buddies so that you don’t run the wrong way, into their safety angle. Communicate if necessary – “I’m on your left!”

It is always better to run the lanes slower and under control, than faster and out of control/unsafe. It is better to maintain a steady momentum of fire and movement on the enemy, as you press closer and closer to his position, that it is to run about the woods like headless chickens, causing a safety STOP.

And here is the kicker: those students who train at MVT learn this all under controlled conditions. It is vital that you learn these things at a reputable school that conducts actual live fire movement training. Otherwise you really don’t know what you don’t know. We have an expression at MVT which is students ‘going bluescreen.’ By attending battle inoculation live fire training with movement, under controlled and safe conditions, you are pushing back the point at which you will become exhausted and ‘go bluescreen.’

“Shoot, move and communicate” sounds good on the internet. It’s not so easy to practice in the real world.

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Flanking

This post is from one of my favorite sources who I make sure gets credit for the information. This is from Max Velocity's forum where he describes in very good detail about the use of the flank in maneuvering and attacking your adversary. This is more of the kind of information that I hope you guys start adding to your training and becoming more proficient at.

Max Velocity Source


In this post I am going to look at the use of the flank.

Small Unit Tactics (SUT) is in fact a skilled art that is largely overlooked due to lack of knowledge and training. One of the ways in which you can focus the effectiveness of your team when utilizing SUT is to use the flank.

Attacking from the flank is a highly effective technique that:

– Should keep you from fighting forwards straight across the main enemy kill zone, by use of a covered approach to a flank.

– Can give you an element of tactical surprise, if you can get to the flank undetected.

– Puts the enemy in a cross fire and allows the support by fire element to shift their fires away from you, but still firing and suppressing the enemy across your front, as you move through the enemy position.

– Never underestimate the psychological effect on the enemy of you assaulting from the flank. They may surrender or flee once they think you might be behind them. You can choose to kill them in place or allow them an escape route depending on your objective: kill the enemy personnel, or capture the location. If you are trying to kill or capture the enemy personnel, consider use of cut-off groups for any squirters.

‘Using the flank’ is a simple thing to state, and to pay lip service to, but there are a lot of tasks and skills that need to be mastered on the way to understanding how it may be used practically. If your training progression stops, like it does for so many, at cool guy stuff on the ‘square range’ you will never understand the use of the flank, however ‘tacticool’ it is to rush from barricade to barricade:

– Fire and movement, at its most basic form of ‘buddy rushes’ is a team movement technique that is in fact a basic drill. That is not a squad attack. Basic fire and movement is used to move about on the battlefield, and is is used to fight through enemy positions, or break contact. A squad attack should not be ‘bags of smoke and straight up the middle’ simply utilizing basic fire and movement. That is not to even mention the madness of the latest ‘squad attack’ fad I have seen on YouTube, where everyone advances stood up on line, shooting. Way too Hollywood!

Even if you think you are at very close range, you should try and get an element to the flank to suppress from there. It may seem a short distance, but rushing into the enemy guns is a long way however far it is. Eternally long! This applies to the ‘hasty attack’ which is an option when coming under enemy contact. My thoughts on breaking the contact into ‘near and far ambush’ are written here. If you can get an element to a flank, even if that is the support by fire element, then do so.

– This does not just apply to a squad hasty attack, depending on your numbers. You can go to a flank even if there are just two of you. Using the flank is a drill that is not automatic, but requires command input and leadership. You must understand the ground (terrain). It is still fire and movement, but you have an element providing support by fire while the other element moves to the flank, via a covered or concealed route.

– When we talk about flanking the enemy, we are mostly concerned with doing so as part of a squad hasty attack. A deliberate attack, or raid, is planned in advance based on recce. As such you will dispose your groups, your support by fire and assault groups, in such as way that you are already at that ninety degree angle and attacking from the flank of your support by fire element. That is part of your planning and rehearsal process.

– A squad hasty attack happens when you patrol into an enemy kill zone and are engaged. The idea is to place an element into a support by fire position and have them win the firefight to suppress the enemy, allowing maneuver. Your assault element(s) will use a covered approach to move to a flank, and assault from there, preferably at a ninety degree angle to your support by fire element. As a battle drill, the squad hasty attack follows these steps:

1) React to effective enemy fire. (Return Fire – Take Cover- Return Appropriate Fire).

2) Locate the enemy. Often the big challenge. Target indications are given: Distance, Direction, Description.

3) Win the firefight: regain the initiative and suppress the enemy. Commanders use fire control orders to achieve this, combined with utilizing rapid and sustained rates of fire. Ammunition = Time under enemy fire.

4) The attack. Broken down into:

– The approach: move to a flank using a covered approach. Move to a forming up point (FUP) before crossing the Line of Departure (LD).

– The assault: fight onto the forward edge of the enemy position (FEEP) from the LD. Fire and movement.

– The fight through: fight through and clear the enemy position to the limit of exploitation (LOE).

5) Reorganization: consolidate on the enemy position. Pay attention to sectors and depth/mutually supporting enemy positions.

– LACE: Liquids, Ammunition, Casualties, Equipment.

Utilizing the assault cycle will help you visualize how to cycle your elements through the various roles in the attack. This is why a 12/13 man squad, divided into 3 teams, is ideal.

So if you have two enemy positions/buildings that you need to assault, you will suppress them both and then move to a flank with your assault element. Your third element will likely be reserve/flank protection at this time. Once your assault element has fought to the LOE on the first position (or cleared the first building), they will most likely now move to a support by fire role to suppress the second position. It depends on the ground/spatial relationships. You then have the option of pulling in your reserve element as your next assault element. If the initial support by fire element is now out of sector and of no more use, move them to reserve/flank protection.

Note: with green/partially trained troops make an effort, if possible, to move them up to their assault launching point (LD) without moving them through the already cleared initial enemy position(s). Battle inoculation is good, but if it hasn’t happened up to that point, don’t let them see the results before it is too late and they are in it with no choice but to fight through. Seeing weapons effects up close and personal before they are expected to ‘go over the top’ themselves is not a good idea. Other than that, you ‘gotta be in it to win it,’ right?

Using the flank is primarily a concern when assaulting (attacking) an enemy but you must also understand how the enemy may use a flank attack against you, and guard against it with your defensive dispositions. Remember: all round security and mutually supporting positions. Flank Protection! This is important for the prepper crowd who may not have a real defensive plan in place. I talk about this at class: those winking muzzle flashes in the tree line above your log cabin may not be the totality of the ‘gun fight.’ They may in fact be the support by fire element, and if you don’t keep eyes out, the next thing you may know is the side of your building being breached by an assaulting force.

In order to be able to use the flank, you need to train yourself to think like an infantryman. You need to be able to conduct a rapid combat estimate and then implement it under fire.

In order to be able to think like an infantryman, you should train to understand the following elements:

– Understand ground/terrain with a ‘soldiers eye.’ You are looking at the shape of the ground and how it positionally relates.

– ‘Dead ground’ – what cannot be seen from potential enemy positions.

– Covered and concealed approaches. Relates to dead ground.

– Micro terrain: folds in the ground will provide cover. Running, crawling, low crawl?

– Spatial relationships between where the enemy is, where you are, and what options you have for covered approaches. It’s never going to be a 100% solution!

– Effects of direct fire and fire angles.

– Divide the potential approaches up: far left, near left, center, near right, far right.

– Once you have looked at potential approaches, overlay that with where the enemy position(s) are, where you are, what are your potential support by fire locations, what impact does that have on the assault angle, and what impact does that have on the next part of the assault cycle i.e. sequencing?

You are looking to get that ninety degree angle between your support by fire and assaulting elements. But you also have to consider where the enemy position(s) are and what effect that has. If there are two offset mutually supporting enemy positions, and the ground is ideal to go left flanking, but that means that the support by fire element cannot suppress the depth because it would effectively be positioned behind the assaulting element, then the assaulting element would get cut down by the depth enemy position. So does that mean we need to go right flanking? Or do we have a third team, the reserve/flank protection team, who we can send up with the assault element to suppress the depth enemy position while the initial assault goes in? Then maybe they assault the depth, with support by fire from the first assaulting team?

If when you are doing your estimate you realize that the enemy is too much to bite off, then this is where you consider breaking contact. You give orders to that effect and sequence your teams out using fire and movement. Similarly, if you are moving to a flank and run into the enemy mother lode, then you will need to break contact.

Make a decision. Yes. Do not dither and prevaricate.

But no plan survives contact with the enemy.

Do not be afraid to be flexible if that is the sensible course of action. New information!

But if you are going to be able to change the direction of the juggernaut, you need to be able to communicate that, and you need element team leaders who you can reach out to and signal your intent. Otherwise a sudden decision to break contact could leave an element swinging in the breeze. If you can’t communicate a change, you will have to go through with the plan.

As the squad leader, you will position yourself at the point of main effort. This will change. This is why it is ideal to be able to operate like a platoon leader, where you can move independently from team to team rather than being stuck as a part of one team. It is not your job to fire your weapon. You are there to influence and direct the battle. You will only fire your weapon, and get directly stuck in, if things start to go wrong and direct leadership is required. Heroes are only needed when it starts to go wrong! The squad leader will normally lead the assault element to the flank and direct the assault. Let the team leader run his assault, commanding in his own sphere. The squad leader will then direct the next phase, perhaps the reserve team now going to assault the next position.

As a squad leader, if you have the resources, it is useful to have an element that you can use to directly influence the battle. If you had a machine gun you could keep a machine gun group with you. This may mean in this context having a designated marksman (DM) under your direct control. You will then deploy this asset to influence the battle, perhaps to a flank. You could send the DM to bolster the support by fire element, or to watch a flank, or to suppress a newly discovered enemy position that is harassing the assault element, for example.

Movement under enemy fire is not about speed, it is about momentum. It may at times be about individual speed, such a running across an open area, but overall it is about momentum, Momentum is keeping the pressure of your suppressive fire on the enemy as you steadily maneuver to close with and destroy him. If you have a ‘shoot and scoot’ type enemy, you will never be able to close with and destroy him. Multiple enemy from multiple firing points at longer ranges is a problem. Just look at Helmand, where heavily laden troops find it hard to maneuver on the enemy, who is running around in sandals and scooting about on motorbikes. You need to balance your fighting load and your tactical fitness levels in order to remain mobile. If you are going to close with and destroy the enemy, you need to suppress him in place (Fix) in order to allow you to do so (Strike). By the time your assault element gets up there, you want the enemy to be dead or suppressed in cover. He may surrender as the assault team closes, or try to run. If he stays to fight and makes the assault team fight through, it’s big boys rules. Did you give him a chance to take a course of action other than fighting to the death? No live enemy left behind you as you fight through.

This is also one of the reasons that fire must be effective. It is not about volume/noise of fire. It is about accurate fire. Fire discipline. If you are shooting at positively identified enemy (PID) then your round count will be lower than in training anyway. Support by fire commanders will control fire to lessen the amount of ammunition used while effectively suppressing what needs to be suppressed. It is like being the conductor of an orchestra. Under enemy contact, ammunition is time. No-one is pushing a pallet of ammunition out of a C-130 over your position. You have your first line scales and any resupply you arrange for. Do you have a guy on a ATV with trailer, loaded with ammo cans, following your squad? Maybe you should think about it?

The skill is making your ammunition last by the use of accurate fire. Go to rapid fire when needed but then scale it back. Make your hits. Fire discipline and over-excitement is something I notice in training. It’s almost a cultural thing. Yahoooo!!! I call it having a ‘militia moment’ because it is undisciplined and if you let it get out of control, it will, with nothing to show for it but a ‘tactical yard sale’ of empty magazines.

The art and skill of SUT seems to have been largely lost throughout the years of the GWOT. I believe it is maintained in certain professional infantry units. Hosing the enemy down on a mountainside from your position on line behind a wall, and “calling for fire’ is not SUT. In fact, in these conflicts in the middle east, coalition armies are consistently out maneuvered by lightly equipped enemy forces. Now, I know there is a reluctance to take risks. Because why? BFYTW. But this is where there is a certain misunderstanding about SUT, due to ignorance:

Doing these techniques is not simply ‘running about’ in the face of the enemy. It should be done professionally with cold aggression. Use momentum to suppress and steadily maneuver on the enemy. You won’t be able to ‘call for fire’ anyway, because you don’t have the assets. So the answer is well executed SUT. Trading fire in a ‘gun fight’ from your wall to their wall is an exercise in futility and potential high casualties (or none) anyway. This is also why SUT needs to be divested from the training virus of ‘Law Enforcement’ style training. That sort of ‘gun fighting’ LEO based training is individual shooting skills. It is not SUT. It is some criminals in a car that you just stopped, or some drug dealers ‘in the hood.’ SUT is not a Clint Eastwood Western movie! Mostly in a collapse situation you can avoid that type of situation by effective patrolling/movement, defensive measures, and having security in place. Threat mitigation and avoidance. Team skills, even at buddy pair level.

Now, in a simple squad attack drill, the team that comes under effective enemy fire will locate the enemy, win the firefight, and remain for the first assault as the support by fire element of the assault cycle. Think of them as the leading left hand jab while you prepare the big right hand swinging in from the flank. However, the enemy has the initiative at first, because you didn’t spot them and the first you knew about it was your team coming under fire in the enemy kill zone. You may have casualties. As you gain proficiency, the squad leader will consider what is effectively a limited break contact drill to get the team in contact off the X. Bring a second team up to suppress while that first team maneuvers either forward, to the rear, or to the flank, depending on the lie of the land. Once they are in a safer location, they can either now remain as the support by fire element or you can replace them by maneuvering a second team to a better support by fire position, before then planning the assault.

You may not be able to get that perfect right angle between the fire support and assault elements. If they only get out to 45 degrees to your support by fire, then visualize what it will look like as they advance on the enemy: they are gradually going to mask to fire of the support by fire element. The support by fire will have to shift fire earlier. Thus the assault team will be more reliant on their integral fire generation as they maneuver on the enemy. In the same way, if they get too far in depth of the enemy, as they advance they are heading at an angle towards the support by fire element, who will in the same way have to shift fire away from them earlier. Also, if people talk about attacking the enemy from the rear, then in a micro-SUT situation such as this, it is a no-go. You will be attacking into your own support fires. You may attack the enemy in their rear, such as their supply lines, but not with your elements facing at each other. Don’t be on opposite sides of the enemy position, is what I am saying.

This is why that 90 degree angle is perfect. As the assault element sweeps in, for example from the right flank, the support by fire element is shifting fire away from them to the left. The assault element can be ‘fired in’ to the last minute. In order to prevent fratricide, you will need to have an agreed signal for shifting fire. At a very basic level, the support by fire leader can see the assault force moving in. You can use radio, flag, light stick, strobe, whistle or whatever to signal phase/report lines and shifting fire. Note that in thick bush/jungle, visibility through the thick vegetation may preclude a flanking attack simply due to the risk of fratricide. In these circumstances, it is often the case where we default to an on line ‘fight through’ style attack. In this way, all the friendly fire is going in one direction away from your skirmish line. This is normal for a FIWAF (fighting in woods and forests) situation. However, if you are skirmishing forwards on line, make sure you have flank protection elements looking out to the left and right, on the ends of the skirmish line.

If you find the ground and spatial relationship with the enemy/friendly forces does not allow you to get out to that 90 degree angle, then there are other options. Moving the team that initially comes under enemy fire has already been discussed. Perhaps you can only get a good covered approach and find a suitable FUP/LD out at a 45 degree angle, for arguments sake. So you move an element out to 45 degrees on the right, supported by an initial fire support element in the center. Perhaps now you move that fire support element out to the left at 45 degrees? You now have a ninety degree angle and what is called a double envelopment. Once you have those two elements in place, you can revert to the classic drill of one being fire support and the other being assault. You have an option as to which is which. Or, you can maneuver both of them, alternately, closing with the enemy before deciding which will conduct the final assault. If you had three elements, you can even leave one in the center to provide support, but if you do so keep an eye on the safety angles and have them cease fire at the appropriate time – they may not be able to shift fire left or right, due to the presence of the two enveloping elements.

There are any number of sequencing movements that you may do, with the intent of suppressing the enemy positions in order to allow you to maneuver onto them. Clearly, at squad level, at a certain point, beyond two small enemy positions, perhaps a couple of foxholes, it gets beyond a squad and you will have to bring in additional elements to suppress depth/mutual support while you maneuver. It becomes an operation for maybe two large squads, or a platoon. As part of the combat estimate, you have to train yourself to rapidly weigh the options and make a decision as to a course of action. Only you will know the enemy you face. If they are an untrained rabble, then a disciplined squad who knows how to shoot and use cover/concealment to maneuver, could cut through any number of them.

There are different considerations on the fight through for different types of objectives. A scattered enemy ‘in the open’ in temporary fighting positions can be dealt with by a simple fight through. If you get foxholes or bunkers, there are slightly different considerations but effectively you are breaking down your teams into 2 man groups so that one group can cover while another grenades the foxhole. It’s just a little more of a considered approach to the fight through, with coordination to blow each foxhole/bunker in sequence. Everything needs to be suppressed, in order for you to close with each bunker. If it’s a mutually supporting defensive line in depth, then I’ll see you in Valhalla, as you clutch your Medal of Honor!

Now, if you think about it, if the enemy is in a building, then you need to do this flanking squad attack maneuver in order to get up to the building. You can then breach and enter. It then becomes a clearance operation, and there are different considerations for MOUT. However, in simple terms you need to suppress the enemy in each building of whatever cluster of buildings it is, while you close with and breach/enter the first one. When that is clear, you sequence through the assault cycle to one building after another, attacking in echelon from one building to another.

In modern infantry parlance, we like to talk about attacking ‘in echelon’ which refers to the assault cycle and using an element to attack the first objective and another element ‘in echelon’ to attack the second and so on. ‘Back in the day’ of the NATO ‘T’ style FUP etc, we would move in elements side by side and attack on line with large group fire and movement. That’s not cool any more. Now we will put the ‘spare’ element as a reserve/flank protection while we assault the first part of the objective.

Now, having read all this, you may tell me that you are simply an armed civilian and that you have no intention of ever, under any circumstances of collapse and absence of the rule of law, carrying out an attack. You are only interested in tactical self defense. Fine. Even if you are conducting a break contact drill at larger than team level, you can use the flank. Simply bring up a team that is not in contact, while the team(s) in contact conduct their break contact drill, and move them to a flank to bring the enemy under fire. This will help the teams in contact break clean.

Any questions?

OK, let’s go….

Max

I hope you guys enjoyed that article. If you have a chance, visit Max's site, and attend his training if you can, it would be well worth your time and money!

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Gear for the American Patriot: The Tactical Patriot Store
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Tactical Training

Here are some more videos for you guys to check out. These are pretty good examples of how you could be performing training. I know it is hard to catch training like this on a video and still get an sense of what is actually going on, but check them out, there is some good stuff here. I am trying to get you guys thinking about how to improve your training, so this is an ongoing topic that I am adding to little by little.

Please watch these videos and think about how training like that could help you and your group, and or how you can incorporate some of the concepts and ideas into your training. These videos show some different patrolling, reaction to contact, and hasty attack. These are some of the basic concepts that we need to be working on and mastering as well as some of the more advanced things that I have been talking about.





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Gear for the American Patriot: The Tactical Patriot Store
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