Unconventional Warfare in Mountains

From the historical perspective, successful guerrilla warfare operations by irregular forces have usually been conducted in three environments: thick deciduous forests (as in partisan resistance to the Nazis during World War II), swampy, lowland-jungle environments (most notably like the Vietnamese Communists in that conflict), and alpine environments (the Afghan resistance to the Soviets and our own conventional-force incursions since 2002, and numerous resistance forces in World War II).

Since the first is only viable for the partisan in today’s world of thermal imaging and aerial infrared (IR) in summer months (the leaf canopy can provide some protection from this threat), and since the U.S. lacks large areas of lowland jungle (exception: the Everglades, bayous, and some notable areas of the southeastern states), the alpine advantages of the Appalachians and— more notably—the American Redoubt’s Rocky Mountains offer some significant advantages to a resistance movement in proverbial Shit-Hits- The-Fan (SHTF) scenarios.

While there are innumerable arguments that can be made for the (supposed) advantages of urban or suburban environments for guerrilla operations, the historical fact is: no successful insurgency has ever been sustained in the long-term, in a built-up, inhabited area. While many like to argue the examples of the Chechen resistance against the Russians in the first battle of Grozny, the sequel to that fight aptly demonstrated that a determined conventional force can simply raze the city and destroy the guerrillas’ urban defenses. Likewise, the oft-cited example of Fallujah in Iraq. While certainly expensive, it’s not a particularly challenging feat for a modern combined-arms force to destroy a city through bombardment. Destroying a mountain range? Somewhat more challenging.

Small-unit operations in alpine regions present some very unique, specific, and constantly shifting challenges and opportunities for the partisan. A well- disciplined, trained, and prepared irregular guerrilla force—specifically trained and acclimated for operations in mountain environments—has the ability to leverage the unique climatic and terrain considerations to overcome technological advantages of superior forces. Units composed of mountaineers can create opportunities to adapt and utilize the challenges of these environments for tactical victories. Nevertheless, mountain operations demand extreme physical conditioning, beyond the norm mental and physical toughness, and near superhuman endurance as well as a high level of tactical and technical expertise on the part of individual guerrilla fighters and leaders.

You must have training and experience in this environment. The physical characteristics of mountains create unique conditions favoring the guerrilla force who can utilize them as de facto allies.

The presence of intervening terrain features and extreme differences in elevation can severely limit the technologically superior enemy to use artillery and/or mortars. These same features also serve to canalize terrain, forcing the dispersion of numerically superior forces into smaller sub-units, providing the smaller guerrilla force a parity of numbers. This reduction in the immediate battlespace allows the trained and well-disciplined guerrilla force to attack larger forces piecemeal. This is known as the tactical principle of defeat in detail.

Steep angles and alpine mass negatively affects even the most advanced communications devices. Radios, cell phones, and even satellite communications: the usefulness of all of these is severely influenced by the cut-up nature of alpine terrain. For the trained, disciplined guerrillas, this allows the leverage of more primitive communications methods, such as couriers, to multiply force.

The broad vista characteristic of alpine provides the ability to engage hostile forces at—and beyond—the doctrinal limits of direct fire small arms range. This allows the guerrillas — with an appropriate emphasis on intermediate-distance marksmanship skills, individual movement techniques, and the near and far ambush — to leverage superior physical conditioning, knowledge of the local terrain, and technical and tactical expertise to their advantage.

The use of many aerial assets, such as close-air support from rotary-wing assets and troop transports, are severely curtailed by their limitations at high altitudes. The tight confines of alpine regions also limit the use of parachute-deployed airborne infantry to extremely limited applications in suitable drop zones (one very important exception to this is free-fall trained personnel to conduct HALO operations in “pinpoint” drop zones). When aircraft are used in alpine environments, their reduced performance thresholds leave them extremely susceptible to interdiction by man-portable weapons. Available to guerrilla forces internationally, these range from the relatively rare surface-to-air missile (SAM) weapons like Stingers and the SA- 7, to the more commonly available RPG and SMAW devices. Another available option is the use of special application sniper systems in heavier calibers (ranging from .338 Lapua Magnum to .50BMG) as counter aircraft weapons due to the reduced speed, performance, and handling characteristics of rotary-wing aircraft at high elevations.

Finally, despite the concerns of thermal imaging and IR capabilities, alpine environments offer significant advantages to counter these threats, including the sizable numbers of large wildlife to confuse heat signatures, heavy overhead foliage in coniferous forests, and especially caves, overhangs, and other terrain features that o er thermal masking shelter and the restrictions of field of view, which even drones and aircraft have difficulty surmounting.

While the comforts of the city or suburbia sing a siren call for many people, the dedicated survivalist must consider the tactical applications of the alpine advantage as a significant factor in long-term preparedness planning.

John Mosby is a former U.S. Army Special Operations soldier, and is the author of several books, including The Reluctant Partisan, Volume One and Volume Two. He lives somewhere in the mountains with his family.

Original article

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Product Review: FLIR Scout PS24 Thermal Imager

Thermal optics are the ultimate force multiplier for members of the patriot movement. In the environment we will need to be engaged in, thermal optics will give us the greatest edge in our abilities than any other single item in our kit. I highly recommend getting a thermal optic of some type, this review covers one option. This is not necessarily the best option, but it is one. Also I did not write this article, I got it from here: https://survivalblog.com/product_review_flir_scout_ps24_thermal_imager_by_kip_r/

by Kip R.

The price of thermal imaging has dropped to the range of Gen III night vision – about $2,000. My bug out location has a valley with a stream at bottom and a wooded hillside, plus surrounding pastures and woods. I wanted the tactical advantage to be able to tell if predators (particularly 2 legged) were in the trees at night. I purchased an FLIR PS24 handheld from Sportsman’s Guide, member price $1979.97, and shipping is often free if you wait for a coupon code sale. After waiting about five weeks, it shipped factory direct from FLIR. My darling wife asked: said “How much did you pay for that?!” I had to make it my only Christmas gift this year…

The unit is hand-sized, 12 ounces, pretty rugged and advertised watertight (although I did not try to submerge it). It has lighted push keys for On/Off, Display Brightness, Display color select, and 2X zoom/Freeze frame. The color selection is White on black background, black on white, and white on black with varying levels of red highlight. I like the first “red” setting, called “I1“. There’s an eyepiece focus tab for +- 2 diopters. The unit has an internal Lithium battery, and a USB-Firewire cable with an AC power supply for charging. When off, the brightness button toggles an LED for use as a flashlight. There is an auto-shutdown after 5 minutes if no buttons are pushed, and a 4 second boot-up when turned on. When it first arrives, you need to charge it about 5 hours before use. An LED indicator lights yellow when charging, and green when fully charged. It comes with a wrist lanyard, soft rubber tethered lens cap, and black soft pouch. A MOLLE belt carry pouch is available via mail order. The manual says its range of operation is -4 degrees to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. The unit can be tripod mounted. The manual says that a man is detectable at 350 yards.

Performance is amazing! While the screen resolution is not a crisp as a GEN III NV, the thermal response is fantastic. With it, I was able to determine that my stream has a contributing spring on my property – the water showed a warm underground inflow as bright white. After standing on the deck for about one minute, step back and your boot prints are clearly visible on the deck, as is your hand print on the railing. You can pick up thermal leaks on your cabin doors and walls – where calking or insulation is needed. Retained heat from stone walls is evident, as well as septic tank covers – even when buried under a couple inches of soil, IF there’s no snow cover. You can see a thrown cigar butt in the grass long after red ash fades. The advantage to a hunter seeing game come in range during low light would be considerable. Finding a downed deer in brush would be much easier. The retained warmth from mechanical equipment like cars or electrical equipment like camera pods show up clearly. I’d expect you could also find “warm” electrical junction boxes with the unit, thus potentially saving yourself from a home fire risk. There is no difference in the unit operation daylight vs. night, but of course cold weather makes the thermal contrasts sharper.

Wildlife shows up white hot, easily visible 150 yards away. Closer, animals show tinges of red in the eyes, head and chest. I could immediately see five deer in the pasture, and when nine deer then collected in the trees I could see them move off single file up through the trees across the valley, 200 yards away. Note that with a GEN III ITT monocular I could not see any identifiable shapes or movement in the trees, but with thermal the deer were easily visible.

Detractors
You can hide from thermal imaging. I found that glass acts as a mirror; a white-hot candelabra bulb is not visible through a double pane window standing only 2 feet away – all you see is your reflection in the window. Thermal images reflect off still water as well. I’d expect a space blanket “hide” to shield a thermal signature about the same. I found that the soft rubber eyecup is easily dislodged – I almost lost it in the grass – I’d recommend that you use black electrical tape to secure it to the unit. Battery life is good, about 4 weeks of use 10 minutes per night. The manual states that the unit has to be returned to the factory for battery replacement. Fog or falling snow does decrease the sharpness of the thermal contrast on the screen. I was not able to test the effect of smoke by the time of this review.

If I could have only one, either the GEN III NV or the FLIR thermal, I’d go with the GEN III but only if it was weapon-mountable and [used in conjunction with] a good NV compatible red dot scope. But as a hand-held only unit, the FLIR is superior, especially if you need to know where anything warm-blooded is at night. I called my darling wife out to the deck the night the deer were playing ‘follow-the-leader’, and she spent a while observing them. Afterward, she asked, “Do you think we should buy a second one of these?”

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Unconventional Warfare

This is a very good article that the readers of this blog and any involved in the patriot movement need to learn. We need to be ready to do our part, and to do so means we need to learn/train/practice things that will increase our survivability and our ability to perform the role we will be called on for.

Understanding Unconventional Warfare As It Applies to Conservative Families, by Swamp Fox

Before reading a book, watching a YouTube video, or obtaining any form of information from any source, a wise consumer will ask a few questions. What is the worldview of the individual imparting the information? Is the individual, who is imparting that information, qualified to do so? Is this person sufficiently capable of relaying this information through his or her chosen means of communication? It is said that one “cannot judge a book by its cover”. I disagree. As a man who has, from a very young age, frequented used book sales in search of hidden treasures among tattered covers, I firmly believe in judging a “book by its cover” or, if not purely by the cover, the summary on the inside flap, the biography of the author, and a quick skim of parts of the book, its illustrations, and the author’s writing style. Is this book worth my time? To preface this article I will give you my cover story, which is basically why I believe that my worldview is valuable, worth my time to put on paper, and therefore worth your time to read. As stated in the book of Proverbs, “Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain.”

I am the oldest of nine children: eight boys and one girl. We were homeschooled from kindergarten through high school. I was raised on the words of Ralph Moody, Paul Hutchens, Jack London, Jack O’Brien, and G.A. Henty to name a few. I have spent time in two of America’s armed forces– the Navy and currently the Army, where I remain employed as a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant. I am married and have five children: four boys and one girl. We live on five acres with goats, chickens, and one awesome Boerboel. A few of my childhood heroes were John Mosby, Francis Marion, and the Apostle Peter, who struck off the ear of a high priest. Honorable mention goes to Sampson for the unconventional fighting award, tying 300 foxes together by their tails, lighting said tails on fire, and driving them into his enemy’s camp.

I will not offer advice on subjects for which I am not a subject matter expert. So this essay will be on how conservative families can wage unconventional warfare; specifically, it’s on raising boys, both from my experience as a homeschooled boy as well as my experience as a homeschooling father. It will define the current war we are engaged in and our role in winning that war. For OPSEC, any military-related items covered will be open source; Wikipedia will be my manual.

When we hear the phrase Unconventional Warfare (UW), it may drum up ideas of ninja clad warriors stalking through dark, murky swamps, armed with knives, seeking to kill the Vietcong. We think of Mosby’s Rangers and the Swamp Fox. What might not come to mind is the Civil Rights movement, the Socialist invasion of our education system, or the degrading of Christianity in America’s worldview. In fact, if you pay attention, there are UW campaigns, with their accompanying propaganda, going on all over our country and the world. The battle is being fought. Do we even recognize that we are at war? Wikipedia states that “Unconventional Warfare consists of activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary and guerrilla force in a denied area.” My challenge is to convey to you the following facts:
1.A war for the hearts and minds of our children is being waged by covert, and, at times, overt means.
2.We, ourselves, posses the tools of UW to fight back.

Growing up as a sheltered homeschooler, I was indoctrinated from a young age as to the evils of the government. The evil Democrats, the church down the street, or that music that has too much beat are all “tools of the devil” to lure our hearts and minds away from God, or so I was led to believe. Escaping home, I traveled, read, watched, and learned. I noticed that everyone had pet peeves. Historians and wealthy homeschoolers on a tour of old battlefields in the northeast United States waxed eloquent on our loss of freedoms as Americans. Libertarians and Conservatives cried “taxation without representation”. The list of fractured political protests goes on and on. What I didn’t see were answers. At a well known Christian conference, I cornered the keynote speaker. At 19 years of age, I was young and full of venom. Since he considered himself such an orator on the evils of our society and our rights as Americans, I asked what his plans were to fix those problems; if he were elected POTUS tomorrow, what would he do? After hours of getting a whole lot of nothing, I realized he was “clouds and wind with no rain”. A light bulb went off, and I realized that nobody had a plan. It was all talk, negative talk, with no solution and best left to gossips and drunks. Young men have work to do. Then I learned about American Redoubt.

I Kings 19:10 says, “And He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.” Verse 18 of the same chapter says, “Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which not bowed to Ba’al, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.”

Elijah was a great warrior for God. He did not have access to do a Google search on men who had not bowed the knee to Ba’al. He believed himself alone, the last servant of God in the world, and he believed his enemies surrounded him to kill him and that their victory was assured. Today we face a world in which our families are encompassed on all sides by the enemies of God, but unlike Elijah the prophet, we have the tools to find like-minded people through the Internet.

I was led to survivalblog.com, through the guidance of a friend from church. We were discussing some of our common beliefs and he told me to Google the American Redoubt, which I in turn did. For the first time in my life I was looking at action. Make no mistake, moving like-minded people to areas where they can affect elections through peaceful means and engaging in recruiting such freedom-oriented individuals to join the fight is UW. It is brilliant, engaging, and practical. Before reading about the American Redoubt, my individual opinion was that the world was doomed and the best I could do was train my children in critical thinking and survival skills to weather the storm. The idea behind peaceful utilization of our right to vote and voting with our feet is beautiful. So I firmly believe the long-range goal for all conservative families should be to consider voting with their feet.

Practical Preparations

My worldview is pretty simple– we are at war. The war is already won and the outcome secured, but in the meantime we fight. The TV blasts propaganda at us and our families. Modern literature, newspapers, and other types of media are all tools to dull our minds and lure us into complacency in order to slowly take away our freedom to raise our children as we see fit. So how can we fight? The battle begins with examining every thing that enters into our home. We must filter all information through the worldview of what is good and right and return it to our children clean and sanitized. What follows are practical things I have done with my boys to prepare their minds for battle.

Structure and Detail

First, structure and attention to detail are absolute imperatives. In a world full of excuses and weakness, boys need to know that blaming others and government for personal problems is unacceptable. One of the first talks I had with my wife when we married was far from politically correct. I explained that in our household we do not use excuses like being tired, hungry, or “that time of month” for weakness. Do we follow this to a T? No, but the premise is there, and we attempt to transform our excuses into victory. Soldiers are expected to perform at high levels whether or not they are tired or cold, whatever the weather, bugs, or other distractions. Soldiers must accomplish the mission no matter what. We are all soldiers in one way or another, and I teach my boys that when they demonstrate toughness and are able to accomplish difficult things when under duress, they have done a great thing. As a second-generation homeschooler, I would say one of the worst flaws of homeschooling is that it is easy to become lazy and allow children to escape accountability. We teach them to be self-taught, but we don’t follow up and insure that they are abiding by standards of excellence. Boys need the discipline of fathers or they will run circles around their mother, manipulating her, and doing what they please. Fathers must be a part of the process of homeschooling boys; they must lead by example.

Even when very young, boys must be taught that for every action there is a reaction. For example, if you leave a terrible mess with your toys and refuse to diligently clean them up in a reasonable amount of time, then you have too many toys. Obviously, you are not prepared for the great responsibility of owning so many great things, and therefore, until you learn to properly steward what is yours, five toys a day will be thrown away or something to that effect. Boys need to be weaned or driven off of electronics, movies, and other forms of indoctrination. Don’t get me wrong, the iPad is a great learning tool, but structure must be observed and laws established. Let’s talk about movies. Remember the hero? Yea, he was rather pathetic, weak, and uninspiring, but have you noticed the trend in children’s movies for the anti-hero? Young children are supposed to empathize with this character. He isn’t big or strong or particularly good looking. He is passive aggressive and hip. This disgusting role model mocks his parents and always has a wiser way of doing everything, inevitably leading his family and friends to his or her way of thinking. Young soldiers should not be subjected to watching this filth. In our house, we watch our share of movies, but if you actually listen to the propaganda being fed our children, you will perhaps agree that there are better forms of entertainment, such as books, projects, and shooting. Open the world of literature to boys, and steer them towards what is good and right. Give them room to re-enact what they read. Give them space to run and get dirty, make bows, and wrestle. Monitor their behavior and watch for teachable moments to drive home important life lessons about character and manhood. Bullying and weakness are never acceptable.

Guidance

Secondly, let us abolish this lie that we must not steer our boys towards liking anything, that we have to let them choose their own path. Children would wallow in their own fecal matter, eat nothing but sugar, and participate in a myriad of other ridiculously barbarous acts, if we did not teach them otherwise. There is nothing wrong with teaching a boy the skills of his father. There is nothing wrong with understanding that every boy should have a foundation of skills to enter the halls of manhood. Perhaps they don’t like to shoot or do wood projects or change the oil in their car. Big deal. Like the Nike commercial says, “Just do it.” If we equip them with critical thinking skills and a philosophical view of the world through literature, then, with our aid, we can steer them toward whatever vocation they please, but they will have basic, practical skills before they leave the house.

Reading

Another benefit to survivalblog.com is that it has a great reading list. I have read a few on the list, and one that stands out is Boston’s Gun Bible by “Boston T. Party” or Kenneth W. Royce. With American Sniper setting so many records in the box office, it would appear that America recognizes our need for riflemen. On second thought, maybe not. Still, America needs shooters, America needs Minutemen, and America needs boys trained by their father’s to become riflemen. The best illustration of the grave necessity for rifleman is watching Europe cringing and hiding in fear from Sharia militias. The Charlie Hebdo shooting in France further illustrates the point. Ask yourself if this could happen in America, where many of our citizens are armed? Could terrorists waltz around with apparent impunity stating, “What up, St. Louis Taliban says hi?” I would hope not. Even our criminal elements would shoot back, because they can’t have the Taliban on “their” turf. Will history remember our generation as those who allowed themselves to be herded into cattle cars by evil forces? You can say God would not let that happen, until you are blue in the face. Tell that to Christians in Iraq or North Korea. Train your boys to shoot and shoot straight. Train your girls to shoot, train your wife to shoot, and train your neighbors to shoot.

Battle the Dragons

When I was on my first trip, in Special Forces, to a mountainous region in Asia, I left my wife and two small boys in Japan, where we were stationed. I returned during the day and knocked on the door. My oldest son opened it and calmly asked me, “Are they all dead?” Slightly confused, I played it out. “Are who all dead, buddy?” He replied, “The dragons. Mommy said you were overseas killing dragons, so are they all dead? Is that why you came home?” What could I say? Honestly, what a great illustration of a little boy’s mind that is. A boy’s mind is full of dragons, of princesses and castles, of good and evil. From the time my boys were very young, we have fought “dragons”; the vile things show up at the worst times. In Japan we didn’t have guns, and we didn’t have much land, but we had those dragons. We would stalk them in a wedge formation, using only hand signals in the dark, where the boys were scared. I taught them to face their fears. One of the coolest things I’ve heard was on another military sponsored “vacation”. My wife emailed me to tell me about my boys. A tropical storm was brewing and the wind howled around our house in Okinawa. My wife walked into the living room to see a triad of small Spartans, clad in an odd assortment of my military gear and swimming goggles and carrying spear guns without tips that I had let them play with. With the wind howling and darkness falling, they were terrified. However, when my wife asked them what they were doing, they responded that they were scared of the dragons outside and that their dad had taught them to face their fears, so they had no choice but to do battle and engage the dragons. She of course let them out to face their fears.

I’ll leave you all with this. Teach your boys to turn the light on, to clear under the bed, the closet, or wherever the bogie man is hiding. We know him for what he is– weak and cowardly. The enemy is scared of all that is good and true. All we have to do is stand like a man, face his shenanigans, and send him to hell, where he belongs.

In the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

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