Why You Need Tactical Training

Here is another great one from John Mosby at the Mountain Guerrilla blog. I cannot stress this topic enough, the need is great for each and every one of us to get the best training we can, and to do so continually. Without training no amount of cool gear will make you better. Just do it! Go out and get yourself, your family, or your group some really good quality tactical training.


Why You Need Tactical Training

“Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.” General George S. Patton

Many people in the world today, and most especially in the United States of America, suffer from a delusion. Brainwashed by the intellectual conceit of the modern nation-state, they accept a romanticized image of the guerrilla fighter created by poet, painter, and photographer, that encompasses either the dashing cavalier of the 18th and 19th century, or the high-tech “superman” of the modern “Tier One” Special Operations operator. This image of what could accurately be called, from a historical perspective, the “modern” guerrilla, is one who is shaped–directly or indirectly–by the organized, state-sponsored military that has armed, equipped, trained, and/or fought him. This image, while obviously valid on some levels, is a far cry from what is often erroneously labeled the “Fourth Generation Warfare” guerrilla, but could more correctly be labeled the “classical” or “tribal” guerrilla. This type of local fighter has existed far longer than civilized society or the “conventional” military concept that civilization endorses as “regular.”

What we refer to as “unconventional” or “irregular” warfare is far older than so-called “conventional warfare, despite the intellectual conceit of western military hubris. The currently fashionable idea that 4GW is somehow new or novel is a product of a belief system created by the formal military educational system that views anything that does not correlate to the established nation-state endorse view of “proper” warfare as being “unconventional” or even “irrelevant.” The average prepared citizen, whether he served an enlistment in the military or not, can be forgiven for the understandable practice of deferring to his more professionally educated fellow citizens in uniform, and should not feel bad for this misunderstanding, as even–perhaps especially–professionally educated military officers and NCOs, including many within the Special Forces community, also suffer from this institutional conceit.

In order to understand the fallacies and shortcomings of this hubris, and hopefully move past it, we need to understand the foundations of the 4GW view, and look past it to see why what is “new” is actually very, very, very old. In brief, 4GW theory holds that warfare has evolved through four basic intellectual generations:

The era of massed formations, most clearly evidenced by the ancient Greeks and Romans.

The era of massed firepower, characterized by the Napoleonic-era formations with musket and bayonet, but also by the WWI concept of trenches, tanks, and machine guns.

The era of maneuver warfare, characterized by smaller, more mobile elements of uniformed, regular forces leveraging mobility and more efficient weapons, to destroy the enemy’s ability and/or will to fight.

The “post-modern” fourth generation of non-state actors using networks in the political, social, military, and economic spheres, to convince a more powerful nation-state enemy that their strategic goals cannot be achieved without paying an unbearably expensive cost.

(I recognize of course, that different theorists offer different arbitrary divisions between the different generations.–JM)

Well regarded military theorist John Robb (and I’m a big fan, so don’t think I’m being disrespectful to the guy) defines 4GW as a method of warfare that uses three basic tools to inflict what he terms a “moral victory” over an enemy. These include:

Undermining enemy strengths. This can be as simple as using primitive TTPs to undermine the enemy’s ability to leverage technological advantages to their benefit. Using couriers for communications, in order to avoid electronic signals intercept eavesdropping would be an effective example of this.

Exploiting enemy weaknesses, such as the use of IEDs to target risk-averse American military forces who confine their travels to heavily armored vehicles, along established roadways, in order to avoid the inherent risks of gunfights, would be one example. Blending in with the local civilian populace, in order to reduce the ability to effectively leverage the lack of cultural awareness training of most American troops, by reducing their ability to determine friend vs. foe, is another, when you consider the (rightful) American prejudice against killing non-combatants.

Using asymmetric operations.

Robb cites several very valid reasons for the returning prevalence of what is mistakenly labeled 4GW methods of warfare:

The loss of the organized nation-state monopoly on political violence.

The rise in cultural, ethnic, and religious conflict as a result of weakening nation-state influence on populations.

Globalization of industry and communications making the tools and methods of the guerrilla more readily available to non-state actors.

Finally, Robb describes some of the tools that characterize this “new” way of warfare:

Rear area operations that target the civil society of the enemy, rather than his armed forces.

The use of terror as a psychological weapon.

Ad hoc improvisation, to use the enemy’s strength against himself.


The problem with this idea that “4GW” is somehow novel is that it is fundamentally flawed, as soon as we shed the biases of our institutional conceit, and look back through history without the filter of modern, nation-state arrogance. Even many of the “differences” between 4GW and “traditional” guerrilla conflict that Robb cites are really just differences between the “tribal” guerrilla of antiquity and the modern nation-state influenced guerrilla.

While the “4GW” guerrilla has access to global media/internet dissemination of TTPs, the fundamental tactics of the guerrilla, including ambushes, raids, sabotage, and assassination, have been used since antiquity. Sure, the “post-modern” guerrillas has access to explosives and automatic weapons, night vision technology, and satellite communications, but those are force multipliers, not force creators. Without a fundamental understanding of the underlying tactical concepts of small-unit warfare, which have been common to all societies, prior to the development of the modern nation-state, they amount to nothing of substance. Multiplying anything by zero still results in a net gain of zero.

The prevalence of guerrilla warfare, as the influence of the organized nation-state wanes, is certainly nothing new. While it seems so to people who cannot grasp a world without the security of the organized nation-state, guerrilla warfare is not new. The nation-state concept and even the formal military of the ancient empires are really historically young. The use of guerrilla warfare TTPs, in the absence of nation-state influence is older than civilization itself.

The idea that survival is only viable for small groups means conflicts are fought by small-unit elements is likewise neither new nor novel. Whether this granularity results from a need to avoid decisive engagement by numerically or technologically superior enemy forces, or because subsistence living realities mean that you are limited in tribal manpower is irrelevant. The fact is, the use of small groups of fighters to influence the actions of an enemy goes back to antiquity.

Likewise, the vulnerability of open societies and economies to attack by “irregular” forces is novel only if you ignore history even as obvious as the Roman empire.

Technological advances may make it easier for the non-state actor to leverage the weaknesses of the enemy, such as the aforementioned use of IEDs, but the guerrilla throughout history has used whatever technology was available to do the exact same thing. It’s the technology available that has changed, not the fundamental principle of leveraging those weaknesses. Technology has always been changing.

What we, as modern, “civilized” people see as 4GW would more accurately be described as “first generation warfare,” or 1GW. It is far older than any other form of human conflict, and in fact never really ceased to exist, other than in the collective imagination of people too arrogant to see that the nation-state concept was experimental at best, from the beginning. Guerrilla warfare is, in fact, older than civilization itself.

Long before the advent of agriculture and the resulting formation of farming societies that provided the ability to produce quantities of excess food per laborer that are required to support a standing army of trained, professional warriors, tribes of hunter-gatherers existed in close proximity to one another. These tribes competed with one another for access to limited resources like game animals and fresh water, no differently than modern man competes for limited resources like raw petroleum: with violence.

Throughout the vast majority of our species’ spectacularly bloody existence on this little blue sphere we call home, both before and since the rise of civilization, most conflicts have not been resolved by well-equipped, nattily-dressed parade ground puppets of conventional military forces. On the contrary, for most of humanity’s existence, wars, rivalries, and grudges have been settled by small bands of haphazardly armed, ill-disciplined, and poorly trained or even untrained friends and neighbors banding together to protect their own turf, or to expand their control over finite resources by invading their neighbor’s turn and killing or enslaving the competition. Our modern use of “conventional” and “unconventional” labels for conflict is a reversal of the historical precedent. From the historical perspective, guerrilla warfare is far more “conventional” than formal armies are.

Like the modern interpretation of the guerrilla, the classical tribal guerrilla used hit-and-run, asymmetric methods, choosing the survival advantage of fleeing before a stronger enemy, unless the fight could be clearly leveraged into his own favor. While many psychologists and revisionist historians have adopted the feel-good, New Age humanist view that animal species, including mankind, possess a natural aversion to intra-species killing, at least in the case of humankind, the archaeological and historical record demonstrates that they are wrong. Using the idea that inter-tribal battles were largely “ceremonial” affairs that actually resulted in little bloodshed or killing are patently absurd. The important factor that these pseudo-scientist “experts” overlook, or else pointedly ignore in the interest of a preconceived political position, is that “battles” are not the guerrilla’s fight. Instead, like his modern equivalent, the tribal guerrilla was more inclined to use the raid in the quiet, dark of the night, to kill his enemies in their bed, by burning the damned lodges down around him, followed by quickly fleeing before the victim’s friends and family could mount an effective counterattack. Only a sucker sticks around for a “fair fight.”

That is the “way” of the classical guerrilla, just like it is the way of the “4GW” guerrilla. The idea of constraints being placed on the behavior of the guerrilla, or that he must fight according to the accepted rules of “conventional” military thought is also a cultural conceit without historical or archaeological relevance. “Mercy” in tribal guerrilla wars is seldom given or expected. Just like a modern US soldier, captured by so-called 4GW Al Qaeda fighters can expect to be sodomized, beheaded, or both, before being killed, a captured tribesman, through history, could look forward to being burned, castrated, beheaded, sodomized, or sold into slavery, if in fact, he wasn’t simply eaten. His women could expect to be raped and then killed, or sold into slavery. Even children would be either killed outright, or enslaved. Villages would be razed, crops destroyed, and livestock stolen. While we may naively expect the “modern” guerrilla to be constrained in his behavior by cultural background or training, or the demands of his nation-state sponsors, the use of this type of terror by the classical guerrilla sheds further light on the fact that the use of terror by “4GW” terrorist is in fact, not new at all.

Guerrilla warfare, whether referred to for what it is, or given some cute new label to make it more marketable, is neither pretty nor romantic. The tribal guerrilla wasn’t interested in playing by opponent’s rules, if in fact, his opponent had any rules to play by. For the guerrilla, classical or modern, warfare is not an extension of politics. Warfare is simply survival.

In his 1996 book illustrating the advantages of modern civilization and the nation-state that resulted, “War Before Civilization,” archeology professor Lawrence Keely points out that the evidence indicates that tribal societies engaged in inter-tribal “guerrilla” conflict suffer an average of 0.5% loss of their total population per year in directly conflict-related deaths. For the current US population, that would be the equivalent of 1.5 million deaths per year–more than all combat deaths in American military history, from 1775 until today (just under 850,000 according to the sources I checked).

The absolute truth is, fighting as a guerrilla, whether modern or classical/tribal, pretty much sucks. You don’t get to go home and sleep in your soft bed, wrapped up around momma every night. Perhaps not for any nights for months or years at a time. You may never get to go home, since it may very well end up burned down by rivals who want your territory for themselves. You may not be around to protect your wife and children. Even if you are around, sniper fire can come out of the blue, at the least expected time and place. Kidnappings, rapes, and destruction of property are the norms in guerrilla conflicts. If you think, because this is “Amurrika!” that things will somehow be different, you’re fucking deluded, and missing the point of the entire preparedness conversation. People you love are going to die. Your wife may die. Your children may die. Whether you pick up a gun, or don’t pick up a gun, you will probably die.

Life as a guerrilla, regardless of the overall impact of the conflict, will suck. It will not be comfortable. Many people in the liberty and preparedness movement cite the fact that some Taliban-aligned Pashtun tribal fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan were discovered to be fighting against US/Coalition forces clad in “man-jammies” and sandals, equipped with little more than a wool blanket and a single spare Kalashnikov magazine. The apparent lesson “learned” by these aspiring American guerrillas is that this guerrilla shit must be easy. Unfortunately for these folks, their ignorance is demonstrated by the fact that they’ve overlooked two critical facts:

The equipment load-out of those Pashtun fighters was discovered during battle damage assessment (BDA) studies. In other words, they were dead…Guess that load-out maybe wasn’t so ideal after all? (A gross oversimplification, I know, but it’s valid enough to make the point worth paying attention to)

A Pashtun tribal fighter from the mountains of Afghanistan is considerably tougher, physically and mentally, than you and I put together. Arguing otherwise isn’t even as benign as ignorance. It’s sheer stupidity and bravado. When you grow up sleeping on a blanket or two thrown on a packed dirt floor, in a mud hut with no window or door coverings except maybe a blanket or old hide tacked up, subsisting on rice, beans, and a handful of half-cooked, spoiled meat, while running up and down mountains all day, and fighting from the time you’re old enough to pick up a Kalasknikov rifle, and never advance to sleeping in a protected environment like a real house, with a soft mattress under you, then maybe you can convincingly argue otherwise. In the meantime, sleeping on a soft bed, in a warm house, with your biggest fear being whether the cable bill can be paid this month does not make you guerrilla warfare tough.

When I was a young Ranger private, one of my mentors was a very skilled martial artist and a pioneer in what would become MMA. Knowing of my profound interest in all things combatives related, he once told me, “Ranger Mosby, a lot of guys come to the Regiment because they think they’re going to learn some high-speed karate shit. They get disappointed when they don’t, because we simply don’t have the time in the training calendar for that silliness. When we do have time, we focus on stuff they think is too simple to be effective. What those idiots don’t recognize is, interpersonal violence is interpersonal violence. Regardless of the scale of the battlefield, the fundamentals of victory remain the same. I don’t care if it’s a brawl behind the bar, two rifle squads slugging it out in the jungle, or the armies of Good and Evil battling it out on the plains of Meggido, in the end, it all boils down to speed, surprise, and violence of action! The concepts you learn here, whether as a rifleman, a SAW gunner, or on a machine gun team, will do more for your “martial arts” knowledge than all the shoulder throws you will ever do in the dojo.”

Being the highly motivated young Airborne Ranger that I was, and hungry for any knowledge that could glean from my wiser, slightly older, but vastly more experienced mentors, I remembered those words. In fact, I went back to my room in the barracks, almost immediately (I think it was after he allowed me to recover from the front leaning rest position for asking some sort of dumb-ass question about combatives…), and copied them into my ever-present journal. It wasn’t however, until I was considerably further along in my military career, while serving as a junior SF weapons sergeant, that I really began to understand what he meant. It wasn’t simply a matter of being faster, sneakier, and meaner than the other guy, although those certainly help. It wasn’t just about being more fit and stronger than the enemy, although that damned sure helped too. The truth was, the same tactics, techniques, and procedures that helped us successfully prosecute a small-scale fight against the Taliban in a tight canyon in Afghanistan, were the same TTPs that would allow me to prosecute a fight anywhere, against anyone.

Whether you expect your fight to come in the bush, crawling around on your belly, eating bugs and drinking water from a stagnant, muddy pool, or you expect your fight to come in a large urban area, in fast moving sports cars, with pistols and stolen MP5s, or you expect your fight to come in your living room, against an up-armored FEMA or DHS entry team (in which case, you’re a dumbass for being there when they arrive), the same fundamental concepts apply, if you actually hope to win and survive.

You need training, regardless of what you think. If you’ve served in a combat arms unit, in combat, you probably possess the fundamental skills to survive the initial bursts of violence as well as anyone, providing you the ability to learn as you go about how to modify the TTPs you already know, for surviving without the benefits of air support, indirect fire support, and a long support train behind you. If you’ve never worn a uniform though, or even if you have, if you’ve never performed in a profession that required you to mentally and physically prepare to look another human being in the face, while shoving eight inches of steel into their flesh, and dealing with the psychology of that, while still being able to provide leadership to others, you have no idea what you don’t know.

What you don’t know is, you need tactical training. Being an effective fighter does not come naturally to anyone, I don’t care what anyone tells you. The fact that you can out shoot all the guys in your local pistol club, or all of the local cops who bother to come to the range doesn’t mean shit. The fact that you’ve won every fist fight you’ve ever been in at the local watering hole doesn’t mean shit. Being a big fish in a little pond is not the same thing as being a big fish in the ocean. The sharks aren’t going to fight you on your terms, regardless of your fantasies.

While a Special Forces soldier should doctrinally be a subject-matter expert on guerrilla warfare, I don’t know many of us who are so bold or naive as to presume that we have all the answers. I certainly don’t. Whether looking at SF UW doctrine, or “traditional” light infantry doctrine at the team, squad, and platoon level, the doctrine, as it stands, may not fit a future conflict strictly. The doctrine may not even necessarily be how things actually get done today (it certainly hasn’t been for most of the GWOT in the SF community. Only recently has the SF community collectively returned to its UW roots after spending the better part of a decade focused on direct-action, door-kicking HVT missions better suited for the Ranger Regiment and SMUs). What the doctrine does, whether SF UW, or Light Infantry, is provide a frame of reference to begin to gain an understanding of the nature of the beast we’re dealing with. It is a reflection of the combat arms community’s collective self-image of how we hope to prosecute these types of operations, or at least how the authors of the appropriate manuals hope we fight.

When considering the future application of this doctrine, whether in training or real-world applications, it is crucial to recognize two critical factors in regards to the doctrine, and choose to either apply the lessons that the doctrine teaches, or modify them to your perceived image of what is going to happen:

At some level, despite the best efforts otherwise, a trainer’s own intellectual conceits, as a product of a 20th century upbringing in a largely Judeo-Christian culture, as well as subsequent professional military education and experience, will necessarily influence the conclusions that we reach, regarding the effectiveness and applicability of doctrinal considerations.

A good trainer, with intellectual honesty, will recognize the existence of these prejudices and conceits, and strive heartily to overcome them.

There is a very sad condition that exists in people everywhere, that is especially apparent in the gun and preparedness communities, for men to delude themselves into believing that they know more than they do. There's even an “official” name for it, developed by a head-shrinking psychiatrist somewhere. It’s called “competency bias.” We all (and yes, I’m including myself in that “we all.”)want to believe that we’re naturally competent at anything we might ever want to do, and we tend to conveniently ignore or dismiss any evidence that would disprove our delusions.

Unfortunately for both ourselves and our families, in the long term, we often get away with this in trivial matters. “Oh, I’m a good carpenter!” says the accountant who’s never swung a hammer for wages in his life, and the last thing he built was a birdhouse in Cub Scouts. His delusions won’t harm anyone, as long as he limits himself to building birdhouses. When he decides that he knows how to build a human house though, and absolutely refuses to even consider the help or advice of professionals, while he might get lucky, the house is likely to fall down around him. Even in a best case scenario, and he does manage to build it solid enough to not fall down in his lifetime, the roof and seams leak, the windows and doors sag and stick, and the whole building settles, because birdhouses don’t have foundations to worry about.

“Hell, I’m a great driver!” says every man everywhere, who refuses to take a defensive driving or high-performance driving class, despite repeated fender benders and traffic tickets. That even works out well for him, until he’s staring into the eyes of a 600lb elk, in the middle of a two-lane blacktop, as he comes around a blind corner at 75MPH, at 0300. He either ends up with an elk in his lap, or the family minivan, along with the whole family, ends up on its roof, in the bottom of a ravine, unseen by passers-by on the road above the next day.

“I know how to shoot! I’m better than any soldier at shooting! I shot my elk last year at 1500 yards, with my .30-06, holding two inches over his back!” says the hillbilly (actual statement, made to my face in a hunting camp!) Never mind the fact that the hillbilly obviously lacks an understanding of even the most elementary ballistics, and has absolutely no range estimation abilities whatsoever, while being too cheap to invest in a decent laser range finder.

“I’ve read all the field manuals and I’m an expert in infantry tactics. It doesn’t matter that I can’t actually execute them because I’m forty pounds overweight though, because I’m going to be a 4GW ninja master, so I don’t need that stuff anyway!” says the 5’8″ 230 lb computer programmer turned militia commander, who really couldn’t even tell you what range his rifle is zeroed at, because he doesn’t understand that an 8″ group, at 100 yards, from the prone supported position, is not something you admit to, let along use as a standard for marksmanship, at even the most elementary levels of shooting.

Competency bias, in mundane matters, is humorous. In life-and-death situations though, it results in the wrong people dying, because egos and pride are too important to some important. The comfort of sitting on the computer, blathering on blogs and forums about your prowess as a 4GW guerrilla commando ninja expert, and master of post-modern urban warfare, is far easier, and more comfortable than crawling around in the woods, sprinting from position to position, getting sweaty, tired, and bug-bitten while actually learning to be a novice guerrilla commando ninja expert. Sipping a Coke and whiskey, while typing about your incredible physical prowess in crawling up storm drains, and leaping rooftop-to-rooftop, three stories up, like a “Tier One” commando, is less miserable than being hungry, thirsty, dirty, smelling like you haven’t bathed in a month, and physically and mentally exhausted to the point of tears, from realistic, effective training. Who cares that it might actually keep you alive in a fight? That shit is hard work!

Do you actually know how to develop and set up a multi-layered, in-depth security program, utilizing LP/OPs and roving security patrols correctly? Do you know how to plan and perform those security patrols? Do you know what to look for when planning a security patrol? Do you know how to hit a realistic, partially-obscured target, at 200 meters, with your rifle? When you’ve been moving under the weight of your fighting and sustainment loads for the last week, and have just sprinted three hundred yards?

You need tactical training. You know, in your heart of hearts and soul of souls, that you need training. You just have to turn your ego down and listen to your brain for a change.

Realistic, effective tactical training will teach you how to shoot, move, and communicate effectively. If you’re twenty pounds overweight, with a bodyfat percentage higher than 15%, I can categorically state, with absolute certainty, that you are not capable of moving tactically, correctly. If you cannot shoot a 2MOA group, from the prone, under field conditions, with your choice of fighting rifle, while rested, you do not know how to shoot effectively. If you cannot perform a speed reload, or immediate action, with your choice of fighting rifle, while in full gear, winded from running sprints or individual movement techniques, and blinded by the sweat running into your eyes, I can categorically state, with absolute certainty, that you do not know how to shoot effectively. If you’ve never performed a live-fire hasty assault or break contact battle drill, with multiple small teams moving over the battle space, I can categorically state, with absolute certainty, that you do not know how to communicate effectively.

Realistic, effective tactical training, in today’s environment, is about more than shoot-move-communicate though. It will teach you leadership skills, under field conditions. It’s about mission-planning and troop-leading procedures, even in four-man cells. It’s about preparing yourself and others for future survival.

Realistic, effective tactical training will teach you, better than anyone can ever tell you, exactly how dismally out-of-shape you actually are. Good training is a suckfest and a gut-check. It will require you to reach down the front of your pants to grab your nuts, and confirm that you really do have the intestinal fortitude to man the fuck up and do the right thing, by getting yourself in shape, so you can do what you need to do, instead of just talking about it.

Realistic, effective tactical training will open your eyes to the importance of your spouse not only being accepting of your preparedness plans and actions, but of her being an active, willing participant. You’ll begin to understand that your partner really is your partner, and that you are not the only one in your family who needs to be trained. Your wife and even your kids of weapons-handling age, should be trained.

Realistic, effective tactical training, planned and executed by someone who knows what they are doing, will teach you how to think about security, not just for your family, but for your home and your community, against a broader range of threats, in ways that are cost-effective, as well as simply effective. Planning just for home defense, or just for your personal or family retreat security is not enough. That’s the equivalent of saying, “I’ve got a gun in my nightstand, so I can leave the doors and windows unlocked, with bundles of cash sitting out on tables, even though I live in South Central Los Angeles. I mean, fuck, I own a gun!” That works great…right up until a crew of bad guys are coming through your front door with Kalashnikovs and hand grenades, while you’re sitting on the couch with the wife and kids, watching “The X Factor” and your gun is still in the nightstand. You need to learn to plan for security, at home and retreat, in a holistic manner, and good tactical training will give you the tools to do that.

If you believe a fight is coming, whether you think it will be against the security forces of a tyrannical regime, or whether you think it will be against outlaw bands of cannibalistic San Franciscans, it doesn’t matter how many books you’ve read. If doesn’t matter how many times you’ve earned the Appleseed “Rifleman” patch. It doesn’t matter how many “Advanced Urban Combat” courses you’ve attended. Until you get quality training in the application of those skills in small-unit tactics, you’re just a lonely dude with a gun. Realistic, effective tactical training is a force multiplier you can’t live without, because you won’t live without it. If you don’t want to, or can’t, get to training with one of the guys in this collective “preparedness/liberty” community who are teaching, that’s okay. Go talk to your old high school buddy who just ETS’d after multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, and convince him to help you develop some training plans. You need the training.

Regardless of the existence of educational and cultural biases, based on the established military orthodoxy of the organized, formal nation-state military, the reality is, small-unit tactics are small-unit tactics. The same underlying principles have worked since the time of antiquity, to leverage available technology (bows and arrows versus massed formations to precision rifle fire versus small-unit formations; burning a lodge down around the enemy’s family with torches and animal fat versus using a thermite charge to accomplish the same thing; sabotage of enemy food supplies via poisoning livestock or water sources versus blowing a rail line to interdict mass transport of supplies) against an enemy. While the current doctrine, SF or infantry, may not be perfect, it really is the best idea that the collective experience of fighters and historians can come up with for what will work to prosecute the fight. As the man said, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Get the training and you can begin to develop a frame of reference for what works and what doesn’t, so you can make intelligent, informed decisions about how to modify what is already known to work, versus what you think might work in the future.

Now, when it comes to training, be like Nike and “Just Do It.”

John Mosby

Mountain Guerilla

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The Formation and Organization of Resistance Movements, Part Two

Here is the second part in the two part series by John Mosby, like I said at the beginning of part one, this is vital information that we need to start performing now. We need to be organized and ready to go before it is too late. We need to be part of the solution, not the problem. If we as patriots do not perform the necessary actions needed to be ready to perform our part this nation will cease to exist as a Constitutional Republic (which it really does not resemble any more).

The Formation and Organization of Resistance Movements, Part Two

John Mosby

This is part two of a two-part series.

There are three necessary components to a successful insurgency. The subversive underground is always present and is the first component of the resistance to form and begin active operations. The strategic goals of the resistance movement will determine the level of development for all three components:

The subversive underground
The support auxiliary
The paramilitary guerrilla force

The subversive underground.

The subversive underground is a cellular organization within the resistance movement that has the ability to conduct operations in areas that are practicably inaccessible to the paramilitary guerrilla force, such as populated areas that are under tight control of the regime’s security forces. The underground maintains the ability to operate in these denied areas because it operates clandestinely, returning to innocuous “day jobs” when not performing missions.

Typical tasks for the subversive underground include, but may not be limited to:

-Gathering intelligence and the development of intelligence networks.

-The development and operation of subversive “pirate” broadcast systems that control the dissemination of propaganda through radio, newspaper and leaflet distribution, and/or internet communications and web page development.

-The fabrication of special materials, such as false identification, weapons, and munitions.

-Black market networks and safe houses for transport of personnel and logistics.

-Sabotage by individuals and/or small units in urban centers.

-Operation of clandestine medical facilities to treat injured/wounded resistance personnel.

Members of the underground are normally active, productive members of their community, and their ability to function as part of the resistance is a product of their daily life and/or position within the community. They operate by maintaining a strict compartmentalization and delegating most risk to their auxiliary workers. The functions of the subversive underground are what allow the resistance to have a noticeable effect within urban or built-up areas.

The underground operational cell should typically be comprised of a leader and a few cell members who operate directly as a unit to conduct direct-action missions for the underground. The intelligence cell is different in that the cell leader should seldom, if ever, be in direct contact with the subordinate members of his cell, and the members of the cell are rarely in contact with one another. All communications of the intelligence cell would typically be conducted through dead-drop and other covert/clandestine methods of tradecraft.

It is imperative for the potential future guerrilla fighter to understand that, until he sees and recognizes these actions being undertaken by unknown parties, there is little point to “going to guns.” Doing so will only accelerate the actions of the regime to hunt down such “extremist” outlaws. Since the security forces will not be forced to deal with hunting down members of the subversive underground at the same time, there will be little to prevent them from focusing extensive assets to hunting down the “bandits hiding out in the woods.” If you have friends, whom you trust enough to discuss these matters and potential future issues with, who are not outspoken and openly critical of the current demise, educate them on the need for future subversives. They need to remain quiet and simply prepare for the day they need to wire a couple cans of ether to some douchebag’s engine manifold…(I’ve actually never tried it, but I’m pretty well convinced that it would be an extremely effective anti-vehicle/anti-personnel device to be utilized by a mechanic who happens to secretly support the resistance. If anyone has a junk vehicle that will still run, they should try it and let me know how it works out…Don’t run out and try it on a local police cruiser, please. I am not saying do it now. I’m saying consider such possible weapons in case they are needed in the future.

The auxiliary.

This term refers to members of the population who provide very limited clandestine support to the subversive underground and/or the paramilitary guerrilla force. Very seldom will they be “active” members of the movement and, as such, offer little intelligence value to the regime if compromised. Functions of the auxiliary may take the form of logistics, labor, or intelligence collection. Auxiliary members may not know any more than how to perform their specific function or service that supports the network. They may not even realize they are actively supporting the resistance. They should certainly never be asked to perform a job by a valuable member of the subversive underground cadre, face-to-face. Even in the modern environment of credit card payments and billing services, there are ways to accomplish such chores remotely. Until they are trusted, they do not learn the names or identities of the resistance.

In many ways however, the auxiliary personnel are at the greatest risk of compromise (thus the importance of their not offering intelligence value to the regime if compromised). Typical functions of the auxiliary include:

-Logistics procurement (either through stealing from a workplace, or purchasing on the black market, or open market, if it can be done without compromising their security or that of the movement.)

-Logistics distribution (transporting goods and dropping them in pre-determined cache locations for later pick-up by resistance forces.)

-Labor for special material fabrication (in some instances, the fabrication will be conducted in assembly-line fashion, to preclude any one group of auxiliaries from recognizing what they are manufacturing).

-Security and early warning for underground facilities and guerrilla bases (obviously, this is a task that must be reserved for well-trusted and very secure members of the auxiliary…cooks in regime mess halls/dining facilities who may overhear conversations regarding upcoming operations, mechanics who notice an increase in the request for pre-mission checks on vehicles, etc…)

-Intelligence collection (intentional or otherwise)

-Recruitment (obviously, in this case, the auxiliary member knows his part, but can still be compartmentalized to reduce risk to the actual underground or guerrilla force).

-Communications networks staff such as couriers and/or messengers.

-Propaganda distribution.

-Safe house management.

-Logistics and personnel transport (if functioning as part of the black market, the auxiliary member may never realize he is actively supporting the resistance).

The paramilitary guerrilla force.

The paramilitary guerrilla force is the overt military arm of the resistance. As individuals who actively engage the conventional military in combat operations, guerrillas have traditionally held a significant disadvantage in terms of training, equipment, and firepower (it should be noted that, in the event of an U.S. resistance movement, these would not necessarily be the case. That’s the purpose, after all, of this blog). For all their disadvantages, however, the guerrilla force has one distinct advantage that can offset any unfavorable balance – the initiative. In any operational planning, the guerrilla leader must strive to maintain and exploit this advantage.

The guerrilla element only attacks when it can develop and maintain a relative, if temporary, state of superiority of force. The element avoids any sort of decisive engagement, thus denying the conventional force military of the regime the opportunity to recover, regain their superiority, and use it against the guerrilla force (the application of conventional small-unit tactics, such as raids and ambushes, in an unconventional manner, such as an IED/EFP-initiated ambush, followed by selective targeting of personnel, then an exfiltration, or a rapid, snatch-and-grab raid to kidnap a key enemy leader, are the definition of guerrilla warfare tactics). The guerrilla element is only capable of generating this type of tactical success in areas where they possess a significant familiarity with the terrain and a connection to the local civilian population that allows them to harness clandestine support for security and intelligence-gathering purposes. Don’t ever allow yourself or your unit to suffer the terminal disease of testosterone poisoning and think you’re going to survive, let alone win, a toe-to-toe slugfest with a conventional force rifle platoon. You might have better riflemen, and even bigger numbers, but they have indirect-fire support, close air support, and a faster Quick Reaction Force (QRF) to call on for reinforcements.

Depending on the degree of control over the local area, a guerrilla force element may range in size from fire-team size all the way up to a brigade-level force. In the initial stages of a resistance, the guerrilla force, regardless of size, will generally be limited to stand-off attacks that we typically think of as “guerrilla warfare.” This may include the aforementioned raids and ambushes, albeit on a slightly larger scale. As the guerrilla force grows, however, so should its ability to engage the regime’s conventional military forces on a larger scale, allowing some degree of parity with the enemy. In these cases, formerly isolated bands of guerrillas may be able to connect and coalesce, forming liberated territory that allows for the development of a larger, more conventional military force to face the regime’s conventional force.

It is critical to delineate the difference between a true resistance guerrilla fighter, and other small-unit, irregular force operatives that may appear similar but in fact, are drastically different, such as militias (although the local militia may operate as a part of the guerrilla force in liberated territories), mercenaries, and criminal/narco-terrorist gangs. The militia’s only intent should be to provide security for the local community and its residents. Mercenaries and criminal/narco-terrorist gangs will seldom hold themselves to any sort of moral construct similar to that of the resistance-force guerrilla. It is critical for the guerrilla force insurgent to recognize that only uniformed personnel of the enemy regime are legitimate targets for the guerrilla force. Key political personnel, civilian population sympathizers and informants, etc, must be dealt with solely by the subversive underground. This is critical to the PSYOP campaign for the resistance, since conduct of assassinations/kidnappings, etc., by the underground can be plausibly blamed on the regime’s security apparatus if it is not conducted by organized paramilitary forces of the guerrilla.

Nous Defion,
John Mosby
Somewhere in the mountains

John Mosby is a former Army Ranger and Green Beret, and the author of the Mountain Guerrilla blog.

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Formation and Organization of Resistance Movements, Part One

This topic is what it will all be about soon enough. We need to be ready to form and organize units such as this. This is invaluable information, please read and pass on to your team/buddies that are like minded. We need to organize now before it is too late.

The Formation and Organization of Resistance Movements, Part One

John Mosby

This is Part One of a two-part series. Part Two will be posted tomorrow.

Resistance movements generally begin with the desire of individuals or small groups of individuals to remove intolerable conditions imposed by an unpopular regime. Opposition towards the regime and hatred of existing conditions that conflict with the individual’s or the group’s values, interests, and way of life spread from the individual (or group of individuals comprising the group) to family, close friends, and neighbors. This can result in an entire community cohering in an obsessive hatred for an established regime. Generally, this hatred has historically manifested itself as sporadic, spontaneous, nonviolent and violent acts of resistance towards the regime, or available representatives of the regime. As the discontent grows, natural leaders (historically, former military personnel, clergymen, local political leaders, and community organizers- remember most resistance insurgencies in the last century had a basis in communist/socialist ideals…) emerge to channelize the discontent into an organized resistance movement that promotes its own growth. The population must be convinced by this leadership that it has nothing to lose, or at least, more to gain, by resistance, than by maintaining the status quo.

The ultimate key to progressing from increasing discontent to active insurrection is the belief by the populace that they have nothing to lose by revolting, combined with the belief that they have a genuine chance to succeed. Additionally, there must be some sort of catalyzing trigger that ignites popular support against the regime’s power and a dynamic resistance leadership that can exploit the situation when it arises. (Critical Note: this apparent focus on leadership within the resistance should not be construed to invalidate the concept of “leaderless resistance.” The concept of leadership should not be relegated to some shadowy, mythical central controlling party of the resistance, but rather, individual cells should have the ability and willingness to take advantage of any key trigger events to leverage the already present discontent to begin active operations to win the support of the populace.).

Once the resistance begins to act out against the regime, there are two types of initial resistance: Clandestine resistance and overt resistance.

a) Clandestine Resistance is conducted by people who outwardly appear to follow their normal mode of existence. This type of resistance may or may not be controlled by any level of leadership, and may include the following activities by individuals and/or small groups/cells.

– Political action and campaigning

– Propaganda development and dispersal

– Espionage

– Sabotage (see my previous post on the critical differences between sabotage and terrorism. They are NOT the same thing.)

– Black marketeering

– Intelligence gathering

b) Overt Resistance is conducted by individuals trained along paramilitary lines. This is the guerrilla force and provides the military arm of the resistance. These individuals and groups make no secret of their existence or objectives (once hostilities have begun in earnest), although they may use the leaderless cell approach and compartmentalize information closely to prevent compromise of the entire movement. The guerrilla force will generally be comprised of those individuals who have previously been openly disdainful or antagonistic towards the regime, and recognize the probability that they have been targeted by the security forces anyway (as much as he hates sleeping on the ground, especially in cold weather, your author recognizes that he has probably set himself up to be stuck playing this role if the inevitable happens. This really sucks since I have bad arthritis anyway, courtesy of letting Uncle Sugar convince me what a great idea it was to walk out of perfectly functioning aircraft that were in flight….and carrying a 90-130lb rucksack? Why gee, that sounds swell!)

Part Two (notes the subversive underground, the support auxiliary, and the paramilitary guerrilla force) will be posted tomorrow.

Nous Defions,

John Mosby

Somewhere in the mountains

John Mosby is a former Army Ranger and Green Beret, and the author of the Mountain Guerrilla blog.

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SF home and perimeter security for SHTF

Now this is a really good article with a bunch of useful information that we can all use. The author has the right kind of experience that most people do not have, but can glean a lot of great stuff from. This is a very important topic that we can apply to our homes, our bug out locations/redoubts/compounds/or any other perimeter we might need to secure.

How US Special Forces Handle Home Perimeter Security When SHTF

October 14, 2013

Home Invasions, Night Vision Training, Tactical Training

Original Article at The Prepper Project

SHTF

Dennis jumped on his mountain bike and pedaled as fast as possible through the brush and onto the short trail that would take him directly to the back door of his house in the growing evening darkness. Either his radio or batteries apparently had just chosen this inopportune moment to give out. Traversing the trail quickly on the bike was something he could do even in complete darkness however, as he had traveled it at least twice daily even before the collapse. Less than two minutes earlier he had spotted a truckload of armed men using his binoculars. Dennis knew they were raiders . They had running lights on and he doubted they had night vision equipment. The truck was turning into the entrance of his small, otherwise empty neighborhood and starting up the first hill.

Since the collapse and ensuing pandemic, everyone else in his neighborhood had left, died or been killed. Dennis, his brother’s family and two other small families from the neighborhood were now the sole residents, and even they were making plans to leave within the next week. Things were just becoming way too dangerous now that word had apparently gotten out that there might be a house in this neighborhood worth looting, women worth raping and food, ammo and medicine to the raiders who took it.

Man shooting a shotgun Dennis and the other three families had consolidated into the largest house in the neighborhood that had an easy area to clear, was located at one of the highest elevation points of the neighborhood and had a crawl space underneath that they were able to dig out and expand. They had done their best to make it appear as though the house was not lived in, but it was impossible – especially when there were children involved – for there to be complete noise and light discipline all of the time. They were going to be ready to bug out as a group in just a few more days, but based on this truckload of raiders, they were going to have at least one fight between the immediate present and that departure date. They had at least given some thought to home perimeter security before the collapse which is a lot more than others could say.

SHTF House He wheeled up to the house, giving the code word for a full alert to Josh about 500 meters away from the house. Josh was in the closest LP/OP to the trail he rode up on. “Prairie Fire, ETA 2 minutes” He said loudly enough for Josh to hear. For the moment, until they arrived at their final bugout location, they were down to three working FRS radios due to shortages on batteries and limited recharge possibilities. His own radio crackled as he heard Josh pass the word on to the nearside LP/OP that also served as the command center. Dennis noted that apparently his own radio at least received transmissions or maybe the battery was just no longer holding much of a charge.

Dennis dumped the mountain bike into what looked like a pile of trash in the back yard and quickly ran around front, stopping at the house to yell only loudly enough for everyone inside, the same code phrase for “attack imminent,” then ran to the front to help check on tripwires and defensive positions. He could hear the sound of the truck now as it turned onto their street less than 6 blocks away. From his combat and military experience, he knew that no unit or team was ever fully ready for battle no matter how much they trained, but he hoped they had trained enough as a group of family and friends over the previous several months to at least get through this onslaught without any injuries or deaths…

Home Perimeter Defense in a SHTF situation

There are two very important concepts to realize when you are faced with the prospect of defending your home – whether it is in a post-SHTF scenario or someone breaking in: 1) A typical residential home is not a defensible structure unless it is either built that way or has been heavily modified and 2) Once the fight has reached the inside of your home, you have lost a good deal of advantage that you will have if you can keep them outside. 2

Because of this, there are a number of important priorities to consider in a SHTF situation when defending your own home, and this article will be divided into two parts. The first part will discuss defending your home while the attackers are outside of it while the second part will discuss the defense of your home once your attackers have entered the same structure that you are defending. It is important to be able to deal with this kind of a tactical situation during low-light conditions. As an additional primer on some of the most important low-light tactics you can incorporate into your training and preparation, I highly recommend the “Own the Night” DVD produced by the Womach brothers, that is available online.

Creating Targets

Small house on the hill. To defend your home correctly, you must take away cover (or lure them to false cover) from your attackers and turn them into targets. This can be done a variety of ways: You can clear all possible cover within a certain radius around your home (100 meters or more would be ideal). It may be that you already have this kind of yard, and are at the top of a hill looking down on all terrain 360 degrees around you, but chances are good that this is not your situation. I personally would have a hard time living in a home where I had no trees, rocks, logs and other
such potential cover in my yard.

So in the case that you have natural cover (and a pretty yard), you need to consider two major things. How can you easily (with less than 10 minutes of warning) create a barrier for high-speed vehicle approach straight up to your house? And how can you direct foot traffic from that point, to areas that you want foot traffic to go to? In other words, what can you do to force attackers into the positions that you want them to be in? Barriers such as fences, logs, rock walls, ditches, ponds, pools, heavy brush, etc., can all be used to keep people from getting to
cover easily (or at all), expose them even more during their journey to cover (such as having to climb up and over a wall that profiles them). This is the type of “fortress-scaping” that you can undertake now if you have already decided that your home will be a bug-in location (which it generally should be) in all but the worst situations.

Attractive walls, paths and heavy brush (for example greenbrier and other thorny plants that are very difficult to negotiate through with any speed) are very easy ways to direct foot traffic to the locations you want it in. At the same time, give yourself vantage points over all potential cover, as well as placing or at least having locations for future strategic light structures (yes, they can be shot out, but if they can be operated remotely, offer a good spotlight situation when you are ready to shoot the target once lit and have at least several seconds to do so while also ruining their night vision temporarily), motion detectors, trip wires (flares, noise makers, booby traps, etc.).

So what kind of cover do you need for yourself from inside your home? In part 2 of this article I will talk about ways to fortify (and defend) your home – both in ways that are not apparent to the casual observer and will give you the advantage during an armed break-in, as well as full fortification in a SHTF scenario – but for the SHTF scenario you can much more easily convert a crawl space, basement or other type of ground-level shelter under your house (e.g. pier and beam construction) that will allow you to create very effective defensive positions. Think “foxhole” fighting positions whenever possible, as this makes you a much more difficult target giving you a huge defensive advantage over any approaching attackers if you have cleared your fields of fire.

Fighting At Night

Fighting At Night. If you are not prepared to fight at night or in low-light environments, you are not prepared to fight at all. There are many considerations in regard to preparing and training for low-light conditions that include the most basic and primitive (flares, tritium/night sights, tracer rounds) up to the solutions that require power in order to work (IR lighting and night vision devices, flashlights, spotlights). IR and night vision is great, but make sure that you have the ability to sustain your power sources for the long run if you are truly interested in prepping wisely. In a complete collapse, batteries and sustainability of power will start to be at a premium in the first few weeks if not days. Target identification when fighting at night is one of the first and most important issues to deal with. Friendly fire is a very real probability in any night engagement involving teamwork. Another issue is keeping track of your equipment, loading magazines, dealing with being hit (both from the standpoint of first aid as well as loading and firing with an injured limb), dealing with equipment malfunctions, remembering where you keep gear, ammo, first aid, tools, etc. , team communication and signals and more. These are all things that can be practiced in the dark in your own home or back yard at night without having to use ammo. In fact, I highly recommend you get the basics of movement, gear and weapon management and weapon handling to a place that you feel very comfortable with before you even load a single round in your weapon and start practicing live fire. As a part of this type of preparation, there are some great resources out there to read, watch and learn from.

Part 2: Inside your Home

In part two of this article, I will cover two primary topics: 1) Field-expedient methods of reinforcing your home in order to make it more defensible and 2) Tactics inside your home if attackers make it that far.



SHTF Home Defense: Part 2 – Defending the Home

Dennis and Jake looked at each other from across what used to be a living room. “If they saw us come into this house, I’m guessing we have about 10 minutes tops before they come through one
of these doors,” Dennis said. A little over a week into their bugout, they had left the rest of their group and families in a much safer location outside of this small town, and had come in as a team of two to scout out supplies, and bring back what they could. Despite their best attempts, someone had seen them come into town and had fired a shot, missing both of them by several feet, but forcing them into the best cover they could find: A small, ranch style home at the end of a small cul-de-sac. They both wanted to get out of town, but their exits were blocked by a small gang that looked to have taken up residence in this town. Their best bet was to hole up in an abandoned home and wait for nightfall.

None of the houses on the block were inhabited – and for that matter none of the houses in the town had appeared to be occupied, which made Dennis wonder where this gang actually resided.
They hopped the fence first as though they were heading into the yard behind this house. Once they saw the back yard was fairly secluded from vegetation, they circled around and came in the back door of the house as quietly as possible. A quick security check revealed the house was void of everything except furniture. An 4 attached, half-finished garage contained some building supplies and tools that apparently had not been scavenged by anyone yet.

Dennis and Jake set to work while both keeping a watchful eye and ear on the street in front and the back yard…

Criminal in mask aiming at you. Inside the Home

In part 1 of this series we covered some of the important points in defending the perimeter around a house. In part 2 we will discuss a couple of very important points relating to home defense from inside of your home – both while attackers are outside as well as once they have gained entry into your home. One of those concepts is very similar to the perimeter around the home (which we talked about in part 1):

Namely directing the flow of traffic in a manner that creates targets out of our attackers without allowing them the chance to shoot at us first. Secondly – and as an overlapping part of this first concept – we want to fortify our house on the inside in ways that allow us to identify and shoot attackers before they make it into the house (ideally) or force them to slow down and take certain routes in if they do get that far.

Both of these concepts require the use of barriers such as furniture and construction materials (cinder blocks, plywood and other lumber, sand or cement bags, etc.). Additionally – if there is time – the common entry points such as doors and windows – can be fortified. Starting with the most common entry point for any house – the door – let’s look at how we can fortify this. The
door is held onto the frame with hinges, a deadbolt and a doorknob. However, what’s holding the frame onto the house? Most doorframes are 1” wood (1 x 4) and have very little strength. The key to proper reinforcement of a door is to use steel (angle iron or mending plates) support that attaches the door frame to the studs that frame the doorway. Additionally, longer screws and a longer deadbolt (not necessary, but helps) sink the frame and the deadbolt itself into the framing of the house. In a post collapse situation where it is not necessary to keep the door looking pretty, 2 x 4’s can be screwed or nailed across the door (if you want to keep it permanently closed), or slid through an angle-iron bracket attached on either side of the door, like a barn.

Barricade Door SHTF. If there’s time, windows need to be boarded up using plywood, cinder blocks and/or sandbags. If you’re short on materials, decide which parts of the house are indefensible and pull back into the most structurally sound portion of the house. However, don’t leave yourself blind. Whether you have to knock holes in the wall or remove doors, make sure you are able to cover as many angles as possible of any room in the house based on how you set up barriers. Home-made, bullet-resistant windows can be made relatively cheaply using glass sandwiched between polycarbonate or acrylic sheets, glued together with liquid nails.

Fake barriers will also afford you the ability to force people behind “cover” that you can easily shoot through. Even though the attackers are in your home, you can still set yourself up for success by having good cover in a defensible location that narrows your attackers through forcing choke points (requiring them to move in single file) and fake cover. For example, you heavily barricade all but one door entry or window entry that you are most sure the attacker(s) will try first. Upon entry, perhaps a light couch in front of the door that slows them down but offers them no real cover and makes it look as though you didn’t want them to enter through this door.

Now let’s say there is a breakfast bar that overlooks all entries into the front of the house. You fortify this with sand or concrete bags (be aware that shooting into concrete bags will create a lot of dust that will interfere with visibility and be caustic to breathe), steel or even lumber if that’s all you have, but give yourself the ability to fire 5 through several different “murder holes” (to borrow from the medieval defense concept) in your breakfast bar barrier.

If you have more than one person defending a room, make the door into a choke point (narrowing it if possible using scrap lumber and furniture) and create wide angles for each person to have to cover when they enter. In other words, force your attackers to walk directly, one at a time, into a room where they are immediately flanked widely. Don’t wait until the first attacker is down before turning your attention to the next one. Have one defender always focusing on the next attacker coming through the door so that they do not have a chance to create their own fields of fire and return fire as a team. Force fire superiority on the attackers from the very start when they have entered the room, and do not allow them to regroup or gain momentum.

Some of the supplies I would recommend having on hand to make your own home more defensible in a bug-in situation would be: Lumber (1/2”or 5/8” plywood, 2 x 4’s, 4 x 4’s, 2 x 6’s), 1”, 2” & 3” nails and/or sheetrock (or deck if you can afford it) screws, power drill (with sustainable source of power), crowbars, gas masks (assume an attacking force would try to gas you out if possible using propane or insecticide, etc.), duct tape, plastic sheeting, sandbags, sand, ready-mix concrete and/or mortar, angle-iron (pre-drilled holes), mending plates, sledge hammer, heavy axe, fire extinguishers.

There is a lot more to be discussed on this topic, but remember that thinking through the concepts I’ve outlined in this article and asking yourself how you would break into your own home are good starting points. It costs nothing but time to practice low-light reaction drills and think through as many possible scenarios as you can in your planning for a defensible bug-in situation.

About Sam Coffman (The Author)

Sam Coffman has over 10 years of military experience as a U.S. Special Forces Medic, an interrogator and a linguist. He studied botany and bioregional medicine both privately and at several outdoor schools in Colorado, and during his military service as a Green Beret Medic he logged thousands of hours in the field as a team medic, military emergency rooms and troop medical clinics. Sam founded and directs The Human Path – a survival school in central Texas – where students learn hundreds of skills based on four basic core specialties (combat medic, hunter gatherer, primitive engineer, scout) both in urban and primitive settings, and then apply those skills as a team in both scenarios and real-world settings in support of the non-profit organization Herbal Medics.

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Info you can use 1/4/2016

Obama is at it again, pretty soon he will cross the "Red Line" and it will begin Obama gun control

Now the Chinese are entering the fight against ISIS Chinese send elite troops

And our politicians want to bring refugees here! Muslin refugee crime wave

Do you have what it takes to live without power? EMP reality check

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Redoubt Kit Concept

Here is a great idea, and a really good concept, I think we should take this idea and make it happen for ourselves.

Original article at Survival Blog

Building a Redoubt Kit, by M.C.

Anyone who has seriously considered preparation for TEOTWAWKI knows that the ultimate preparation is to have a well-outfitted redoubt, located in a remote location. Unless you’re rich and you can purchase one with all the trimmings or you’ve been working on it for several years already, you’re feeling significant apprehension as current events imply time is short and you are unprepared.

Why Have a Redoubt Kit?

Now, if you are the diligent one that built a well-stocked redoubt but find that over time civilization has overtaken the area, this is for you also. Finally, if you have your redoubt, it has not been encroached on by civilization, and you think you’re fat, dumb, and happy, you still may want to consider a redoubt kit. Why? Things change, stuff happens, and if you ever have to abandon your redoubt, you’re going to want to do it with a lot more than a bug out bag. An example of this is in Rawles’ book Patriots, where the group had to flee the redoubt because of impending forces. If that happens to you in a typical Montana winter your chances of survival are very slim, unless you have a redoubt kit.

Most of us have carefully assembled our bug-out bags, spent time educating ourselves on how to survive, and acquired new skills—all of which make us feel better. However, the more educated we become, the more we are confronted with the reality that true survivability is attained by reaching a state of “sustainment”. Unlike having a year’s worth of supplies stored, sustainment serves to provide an endless or perpetual supply. Growing and preserving food while harvesting the seeds for the next season is an example of a sustainable supply. Having a solar electrical system to provide power for lights and other amenities is another. A redoubt contains these and many more products and processes, that when put together provide a relatively comfortable and sustainable living. This is not to say that bartering with others for expendables or skills you don’t have is a failure to reach sustainment. On the contrary; this factors in the larger concept of a redoubt community.

I believe the redoubt to be essential to sustainable survival, though it can take different forms. Native American tribes demonstrated this before the explorers disrupted their way of life. Everything they needed came from the environment where they lived. Some were nomadic hunters, and some were farmers of the land. There were those, like the Apache, who lived in high mountain deserts of the southwest, and by contrast there were the Inuit, who traveled the icy sub-zero temperatures of the arctic. Survival sustainment can be achieved just about anywhere, but you must have the skills and knowledge of the environment you’re in to be able to be successful. It’s a lot of work, and it’s a full time job, make no mistake.

The natives made their own tools out of what was available, and these served them well until the invaders came with firearms and cannon, which were a definite game changer. I bring this up because acquiring the skills of the Native American in an environment of your choosing would not be enough today. The population expansion in the United States alone is a game changer in that it leaves fewer places for a redoubt to exist and in harsher environments. So, there’s no doubt you need a redoubt (pun intended). I believe time is short and if you don’t have a lot of money or you haven’t been working your redoubt and are nearly complete, there is an alternative for you to consider– a redoubt kit.

What’s a Redoubt Kit?

The redoubt kit is like a big bug-out bag, except that instead of being designed to keep you alive for a short term, it’s designed to get you into a state of long-term sustainment. The kit can be a small-to-medium sized trailer, depending on what items you need to support yourself in the environment you choose. It could also be buried in or near your location or some combination of buried and trailered. Maybe instead of a trailer, you need a boat. There are too many variables to cover here. Folks want to be in an environment they are comfortable with, because that’s what they know. From a Louisiana swamp to the mountains of Montana, it’s really about where you choose to find your redoubt and for that reason the first step is to identify the location. You really can’t plan or build your kit unless you know where you’re going.

Selecting a site for your redoubt kit is very similar to buying one except you won’t own the land. You’re not even going to rent it. For this reason, your target areas should be places like national forests, BLM, state preserves or reserves, and other governmental lands. Why? Because unlike private properties that will likely be protected by hostile owners, the government employees entrusted with managing these lands are not going to be working after TEOTWAWKI debuts. Their posts will very likely be abandoned.

Am I advocating that you be a “squatter”? I have no right to give you permission to do so. It is not the ideal solution and carries potential legal ramifications, depending on where you go; you should know that. If you have financial means to purchase a property, then do it. If not, you have to consider less than ideal options and your alternative is staying in a city under siege where your family will eventually succumb to looters or worse. I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by six.

Where?

The same rules that apply for a conventional redoubt, also apply here. Start looking in locations or areas that are just over the distance that a tank of gas would get you from a large-to-medium sized city– about 350 to 400 miles. This a bit different for those using a boat, but the idea of separation is the same. Those who would come to steal the provisions of others will think twice if their chances of success are slim. Imagine you are a pillaging thug and you have a vehicle with a full tank. Would you risk extending yourself to a one-way trip, if you didn’t have a reasonable assertion of finding fuel and provisions when you arrived?

Thugs aren’t the only ones who will trouble you either. Imagine a reasonable upstanding citizen who flees the city to get away from the thugs, but he carries only what he can get in the vehicle, which is probably food, water, some camping equipment, and maybe a gun or two. It’s all good, until he runs out of provisions and becomes desperate. He will impose on those who have achieved sustainment, and he won’t come alone. You may not have to go so far away, but you will have a better chance of avoiding conflict if you do.

What?

What goes in a redoubt kit? That will depend on where you’re going. Mountains will require different items than the prairie, and a swamp is different than a desert. Your personal needs also factor in. Do you have medical issues, physical restrictions, or special care needs? Those have to be considered as well. The best place to start is with the “List of Lists” offered for free on the survivalblog.com website. It’s very comprehensive and covers most all the bases. I know it’s overkill for a redoubt kit, but you can use it as a prompt to identify items you may not have thought of or included in your kit. Unless your bug out vehicle is a semi-truck, you couldn’t carry everything on the list anyway. Imagine yourself at the redoubt and consider the activities you would need to accomplish in order to sustain yourself. Also, consider your arrival at the worst time of the year—what would you need? Let me use my own circumstance as an example.

I live near the Rocky Mountains so the worst time of year to bug out is winter. I’ve already chosen a place that has water nearby and good hunting. I also considered a low enough altitude to have a growing season for a garden. It’s the onset of winter, and the snow is already a foot deep. First, I need to get there safely. I have a four-wheel drive vehicle, not a sports car. Next, I’m going to need shelter for the entire winter. My choice is a canvas lodge tent with a wood-burning stove. Do not consider a stove requiring fossil fuels, as you would eventually run out. (Remember, think long-term sustainment.)

I’m already near water and I can hunt, but I need food to sustain me until I can bag some meat. Also, I can’t live on meat alone, I need other nutrients and vitamins—so, I need to bring enough food to get me through a growing season. After that I can sustain myself with vegetables from my garden. Of course, after I harvest my garden, I’ll need to preserve my harvest in order to sustain myself until the next growing season. This little exercise just prompted additions to my list– tent, stove, food, vitamins, cooking items and utensils, gun, bullets, knives to skin and butcher, axe for wood, garden tools, seed for crops, roll of chicken wire to protect crops, way to irrigate crops, canning jars to preserve crops, canning equipment, and the list goes on. The more you think about it, the more you’ll add to the list. Don’t worry about organizing the list just yet. The important thing is to get it on paper.

Now, you need to consider how you’ll accomplish sustainment. You need to accumulate knowledge. Going back to our little exercise, do you know how to hunt, maintain guns, butcher, garden, process seeds for the next season, or can food? Did you get heirloom seeds? Missing that little item could cost you and your family their lives. If you don’t know what they are, you need to do more research. What if you have an accident with the axe or knife? Do you have medical training? If you don’t have these skills or knowledge, then you must acquire them. Add that to your list and insure you get paper books, as the Internet isn’t going to be available. In short, increasing knowledge is likely the most important thing you can do, and it’s the most neglected.

The canvas tent was good for a temporary home, but now you need to consider building a more permanent one. For me, it’s a log cabin. I had to educate myself on how to build one and discovered I needed log togs, chisels, hammers, and a few other things as well as a blueprint. Maybe you’re planning to be on the prairie, and you need sod house tools and plans. Your tool set will be different from the guy who lives in the swamp. Adjust accordingly to your redoubt circumstance.

Prioritize

After you’ve compiled your list, you’re going to have to prioritize. If you’re like me, you have about a half of semi-truck worth of materials. It’s time to cut down. Start with identifying items that are essential for establishing long-term sustainment, followed by “nice to haves”, and finally (if you have room) comfort items. Some of your essential items do not qualify for sustainment, like the tent, but are required until you can sustain with a permanent structure.

Do the same with acquisition of knowledge and skills. Home-building, canning, and medical training rank higher than basket weaving and stitchery, though those things are very desirable. Start learning now!

Test

This is a very important step and can be challenging depending on your circumstances. If you own a property, that’s ideal. Use the kit to establish the redoubt. Make alterations or changes as you go. If TEOTWAWKI doesn’t happen before you finish your redoubt, good for you. Your kit is perfect, because it was responsible for actually building it. Now, reassemble it, and prepare for a potential bugout. Locate a future location in case you are forced to leave your redoubt, and keep it updated. Your kit is ready.

If you can’t afford a property, as described in the beginning of this article, take your kit to an area where you can practice and maybe camp for a few days without drawing undue attention. Getting a wood-cutting permit for public lands is a good choice here. This is where I was reminded of an item I didn’t have on my list by the blisters on my hands—a good pair of leather gloves. I also added a chainsaw and container of stabilized fuel. I know it’s not a long-term device, as it has a limited supply of fuel, but it sure kick-started the effort. I could have done it with hand tools, but it fell in the category of “nice to haves” and I had room for it.

Start Today

There’s no time like the present. Do not procrastinate! Whether you already have a complete redoubt or you’re just starting out, you need a redoubt kit, no doubt. Everyone is vulnerable.

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Info you can use 12/31/2015

Here are links to information I thought the readers would find useful, and enjoy reading and learning about.

We all need to improve our medical skills, so here is some information that will hopefully help: Needle Decompression Location

More medical information, this is a very valuable skill to learn: How to apply tourniquet one handed

First aid kit: Is your first aid kit complete?

How to protect your family from a Influenza pandemic

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The High Price of Knowledge

The following is a good article about the increase in the medical field that we have gained from our recent conflicts:

The Laboratory Of War: How Military Trauma Care Advances Are Benefiting Soldiers And Civilians

By Eric Elster, Eric Schoomaker, and Charles Rice

Editor’s note: This morning, in Bethesda MD, the Executive Director of the American College of Surgeons, Dr. David Hoyt, presented the leadership of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center with a plaque recognizing its designation as an ACS-certified Level II Trauma Center. Walter Reed Bethesda is part of extraordinary chain of military health system facilities, providers, organizations, and techniques that have dramatically improved an injured service member’s odds of survival and recovery. As the authors of this post note, lessons learned during more than a decade of war are now being adopted into civilian care, to the benefit of children and adults in every corner of the United States and beyond. For more on emergency care, read the December Health Affairs issue, “The Future of Emergency Medicine: Challenges And Opportunities.“

Out of the ashes of 9-11 and the two wars that followed, a new paradigm has emerged that has benefited more than 50,000 injured warfighters and is transforming civilian trauma care. During the past decade of war, strategic investments in research and clinical care, coupled with contributions from world-class clinician-scientists, have produced the lowest case-fatality rate among combat casualties in the history of armed conflict.

At the beginning of Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the combat injury case-fatality rate was approximately 18 percent. Over the subsequent decade, it steadily decreased to 5 percent despite an overall increase in injury severity. This remarkable achievement is grounded in advances in all aspects of trauma care, from the point of injury to optimum treatment in military rehabilitation centers.

As with all previous conflicts throughout history, clinical knowledge generated in the civilian setting was rapidly adapted in innovative ways to address challenges encountered on the battlefield. Now, it is coming full circle to improve the care and decrease the mortality of both injured warriors and civilian trauma victims. This reciprocal relationship between military and civilian medicine, recently highlighted in domestic terrorism attacks such as the Boston Marathon bombing and the mass shootings at Aurora and Tucson, is visible in daily practice in trauma centers throughout the country.

These improvements didn’t happen by accident; the military invested in relevant translational research and developed a flexible, evidence-based trauma system that rapidly developed, assessed, deployed, and refined new advances in trauma care and rehabilitation. In this post we highlight a number of these advances and the science behind them, and we offer a roadmap to ensure that these advances are not only preserved for use in future conflicts, but evolve to benefit all patients — military and civilian alike.

What Has Been Accomplished

Tactical combat casualty care. One of the first important advances was recognition, based on experience gained in the First Gulf War, that combatants themselves are the true “first responders” on the battlefield. Combatants are trained to recognize and promptly respond to life-threatening injuries, and medics and corpsmen are now trained in a realistic, scenario-based, and standardized fashion, based on the principles of tactical combat casualty care (TCCC). TCCC provides the training for the effective use of topical hemostatic agents (bandages with the ability to accelerate blood clotting) and, when necessary, tourniquets to control severe bleeding, along with other skills such as rapid assessment of injuries, airway control, treatment of traumatic pneumothorax (collapsed lung), and immediate pain control.

TCCC is divided into three phases that are relevant in both the combat and civilian mass casualty settings: care under fire, tactical field care, and tactical evacuation care. “Tactical” refers to individual and small unit activities, such as direct care rendered by a first responder at the point of injury, in contrast to “operational” and “strategic” activities, which involve larger units and broader geographic space. This coordinated approach achieved exceptional success; when adopted by elite units of the US military, it resulted in the near elimination of preventable deaths on the battlefield. Today, civilian emergency medical systems (EMS) are adopting the TCCC approach using a course offered by national organizations representing the EMS community.

Bleeding control. Early hemorrhage (bleeding) control, using tourniquets and topical hemostatic agents, are a prime example of how new or improved techniques on the battlefield can produce profound benefits at home. Previously tourniquets were not advocated for routine use for fear of limb loss. However, the need for tourniquets was quickly recognized as essential in modern warfare where severe extremity injuries are common and evacuation is often both timely and fast. Widespread adoption of tourniquets saved many lives in combat without secondary limb loss.4 As an adjunct, the use of topical hemostatics, was more than 90 percent effective. Over the course of the conflicts, these agents were modified several times. This allowed military doctors to optimize their effectiveness while minimizing side effects.

Both of these approaches to hemorrhage have quickly made their way to civilian settings, moving “from the sandbox to the street.” This was most clearly seen following the Boston Marathon bombings, where “without a doubt, tourniquets were a difference-maker and saved lives.”

Massive transfusion protocols. Advances in care did not end on the battlefield; they accelerated upon arrival at hospital settings. This began with new approaches to replacing blood loss from trauma. Prior to our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most severely injured casualties were resuscitated in a step-wise fashion, first with saline solutions, followed by a gradual escalation to the use of blood products. Faced with less than ideal outcomes, military surgeons challenged this approach and looked for better ways to replace blood loss. Based upon solid lab research, these surgeons introduced the concept of “balanced resuscitation”, by immediately countering blood loss with key components of blood when the injured soldier or marine’s injury profile suggested the need for massive transfusion (unstable patients or those with severe injury patterns). This approach not only improved survival, it reduced the rate of complications in combat-wounded patients.

Adoption of “massive transfusion protocols” has become one of the most swiftly adopted changes in care coming from the battlefield. Today, a majority of Level I trauma centers in the US have shifted to this practice. This approach is also being adopted in surgical education, where trainees are taught to activate “massive transfusion protocols” to counter severe injuries.

“Damage control” surgery. The next major advance took place in the operating room where prompt surgical control of bleeding, closure of perforated bowel injuries, and early debridement of damaged tissue are key steps. Focusing on these priorities up front, leaving the abdomen “open” with temporary dressings, and deferring more complex definitive surgery for subsequent procedures has avoided the secondary insult of prolonged periods in the operating room. This led to a practice called “damage control surgery.” This concept was first introduced in the civilian trauma world (utilizing a term adopted from the military, where “damage control” refers to maneuvers to save a ship so it can continue to be effective). The technique caught on with military surgeons, many of whom who had trained in civilian trauma centers, and was swiftly refined under wartime conditions. As with the other advances discussed, the widespread application of damage control surgery has benefited military and civilian populations alike.

Neurocritical care. Patients with specific injuries, most notably penetrating head and extremity injuries, have also benefited from military medicine. In previous conflicts, many of these patients were assumed to have non-survivable injuries and were treated as “expectant” (i.e., only comfort care). Now, they are aggressively managed using techniques similar to those applied in damage control surgery.

For example, in cases of massive head trauma, a portion of the skull is temporarily removed to allow the brain to swell without creating a lethal rise in pressure that would stop blood flow to the brain. This is particularly important for patients faced with long medical evacuation times. Another technique involves preventing the spasm of major blood vessels that are necessary to support brain survival and function. Although this practice has not yet been widely adapted in civilian trauma, it may come to be widely used in future mass casualty events and conflicts.

Treatment of badly damaged limbs. Another advance that has seen widespread use is an integrated approach to early limb salvage versus amputation in patients suffering from massive extremity injuries with significant tissue loss and neurovascular damage. Military and civilian researchers have found that, for certain patients, early amputation results in better long-term functional outcome. For patients who remain good candidates for limb salvage, the innovations in soft tissue reconstruction have produced survivors who not only recovered, but in many instances returned to full duty and extremely active lifestyles.

Two key adjuncts to the successful treatment of severe extremity wounds are adequate pain control and aggressive, early rehabilitation. The adoption of regional pain control and integrated pain management teams has allowed rehabilitation to start while the patient is still in the hospital. All of these efforts come together in the treatment of the multi-limb amputees who face substantial challenges. Without these approaches, the amazing functional results that have been seen would not be achievable. Many of these techniques are now working their way into civilian practice, such as treatment of victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.

Rapid evacuation to tertiary care centers. Transporting injured personnel to centers capable of providing advanced levels of care required comparable innovations in tactical and strategic casualty evacuation. In conflict zones, tactical evacuation is largely accomplished by medical evacuation helicopters, while inter-theatre strategic evacuation over thousands of miles is achieved with large Air Force fixed wing aircraft outfitted with ICU pallets and staffed by specially trained Critical Care Air Transport Teams (CCATTs). This integrated approach has resulted in a reduced medical footprint in the conflict area as compared to previous conflicts. Equally important, improvements in hand-offs of care were devised to assure seamless transitions between the military, the U.S. Public Health Service, the Veterans Health Administration, and, ultimately, civilian trauma and rehabilitation facilities. The collective impacts of these advances in care are unprecedented in military history.

How It Was Done

Almost as remarkable as this progress is the manner in which it was done. Normally, progress in patient care is achieved through painstaking, incremental research, often tested and refined through large-scale randomized trials involving thousands of patients. It’s been written that the average time frame for research to reach the bedside and be widely adopted into care is measured in decades. The military health system didn’t have that sort of time. Lives depended on swift and sure decisions, backed by the best available evidence.

Much of the progress was made possible through creation of the Joint Trauma System (JTS), whose mission is to improve trauma care delivery across the continuum of care through careful data collection and analysis, to improve clinical outcomes in near real-time. This effort represents the largest combat registry ever created. In addition to monitoring the quality and outcomes of care, the JTS develops and implements clinical practice guidelines system-wide, and identifies the training and research needs for trauma care in the military.

The ability of the JTS to rapidly identify emerging injury patterns, develop best practices and research-based CPG’s, and subsequently disseminate and track such guidelines represents a paradigm shift away from costly, multi-year clinical studies to “focused empiricism” and continuous process improvement. Driven to address challenges identified by the JTS, the DoD continues to invest in mission-relevant research focused on biomarker-based care, regenerative medicine, and advanced approaches to hemorrhage control. While many civilian centers have adopted similar models with a degree of success, the widespread implementation of this approach could serve as a model for other large health care systems.

Early in what has proven to be the longest armed conflict fought by the U.S. to date, military medicine recognized that it needed to fundamentally change how it approached the care of wounded warriors. It did this by implementing data-driven decisions at every step in the continuum of care, from battlefields in two nations across 8000 miles and three continents to world-class hospitals and rehabilitation centers in Germany and the United States. Importantly, this work was done while the individuals involved were doing their utmost to provide the best possible care to every injured combatant and civilian they touched. As was true following the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, lessons learned in the crucible of war are beginning to transform care in civilian hospitals in the U.S. and around the world.

The progress that has been made over the past decade is tenuous at best. Some of those who led these efforts have retired from the military, and others are struggling to contend with budget cuts, furloughs and funding constraints. It won’t be easy to maintain surgical skills honed over a decade of conflict. But this is essential to assure that military healthcare in any future conflict will be as good, and ideally better, than in the most recent ones. There is little doubt that thousands of service members and veterans are alive today thanks to the work of dedicated military and civilian health care professionals. Many of the insights they developed are beginning to transform care in the civilian world and millions will benefit.

The knowledge gained over a decade of war cannot be taken for granted. Continued work is needed to identify and manage challenges that are only faintly understood today. The progress that is made will not only help our warfighters in future conflicts, it will help save the lives of civilians as well.

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