5 Principles of Patrolling explained, with select quotes from Patton

In Ranger school a common joke when coming to a decision point is to remind the person in a leadership position "5th Principle of Patrolling" as if that would make their life easier.   The Principles of Patrolling are not a checklist, you have to do all five at the same time.  However, the principles apply to EVERYONE on the patrol, not just leadership.  Even a rifleman should know the route, should be actively engaged in planning (even if it is just over his personal kit and duties), should know where he falls in the chain of command and be able to accomplish the mission (though I be the lone survivor).  Oh, and you get to do it all in a time crunch most of the time.

5 Principles of Patrolling:

Planning

Recon

Security

Control

Common Sense

Planning: what are you going to do?  What do you need to do to accomplish what you are going to do?  What route are you planning on taking?  What is the backup route?  What are your checkpoints on each route?  What are your backstops, handrails, and rally points?  What is your plan if you cannot accomplish your assigned mission?  What is your medical plan?  What is your Escape and Evade plan?  What is your resupply plan?  What is your Communications (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency: PACE) plan?  This principle goes hand in hand with Recon, as oftentimes you plan your route while conducting a map recon.  GEN Eisenhower said, "Plans are worthless, but planning is priceless."  I fully agree.  

"A good plan executed today is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite point in the future."
- General George Patton Jr

Recon: Look at a map, look at imagery, look at the terrain.  Look at any intel you have on the enemy and objective.  Look at the patterns of life for the area you are going through.  Look at the terrain, vegetation, people, infrastructure, obstacles, weather.  Will the soil give for easy walking, or will it be a trudge through the mud? Or sand?

 "Just drive down that road, until you get blown up"
- General George Patton Jr, about reconnaissance troops (not the preferred method of Recon in AM's thinking)

Security: Always the first priority of work, during movement, at rests, in the patrol base, everywhere and always.  Why it is listed as the third principle and not the fist I don't know.  You are never secure enough, you should constantly improve your security when not moving.  The moment you think you are secure enough is the moment where you have deluded yourself into vulnerability.

"Fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man."
- General George Patton Jr

Control: How do you move your formation? File? Wedge? How do you coordinate fires between teams and squads?  What is your plan for who takes over when you go down?  A well coordinate team of average grunts is going to whup up on an uncoordinated team of Super Soldiers.  There is strength in numbers, but only when those numbers are coordinated and working together.  Gung Ho means "work together."  

"Success demands a high level of logistical and organizational competence."
- General George S. Patton, Jr

Common sense: fight the enemy, not the plan.  If something feels wrong, figure out why or if you can't then go with your gut.  If something seems too easy, make sure you aren't walking into a trap.

"Make your plans to fit the circumstances."
- General George S. Patton, Jr

Reloading Presses, a great way to spend your winter to keep you shooting all summer.

I've written about reloading presses before, and I probably will again.  All presses work, and it is better to have a press you have to tinker with from time to time than nothing at all.

Single Stage Presses range from relatively lightweight cast aluminum C presses to behemoth cast iron O frames.  The truth is that as long as the press is physically strong enough to do what you are trying to do, they all work.  I think the best press for the money in this category is the Lee Classic Cast press as it can take even a 50 BMG, which is a nice feature to have.  People still stand behind their Rock Chucker or CoAx press, and that is perfectly understandable. 

Turret presses are nice, the classic T7 turret press doesn't do you any favors about reloading quickly, the Lee 4 Hole Turret Presses, either the Cast Iron base or aluminum base, are the best presses in the category as they are the only presses that auto index and have changeable toolheads.  The older Lee 3 hole turret presses are hard to find on the current market, so people must be holding on to them.

Progressive presses are designed for high volume reloaders.  The cheapest progressive on the market is a Lee Pro 1000.  Lee took their 3 hole turret press and turned it into a progressive press.  Compared to anything else in the Progressive category it sucks, but compared to a single stage or non-indexing turret, it cranks out a lot of ammo quickly.  A step up is the Lee Loadmaster, and while it has a bit of a better reputation, is still known as being a finicky machine (and it is still a big step up from any single stage or turret in terms of reloading volume).

The next set of Presses is the Dillon, which the cheapest model only takes Dillon dies (which are more expensive so you really don't save all that much) and the Hornady Lock and Load progressive.  At the top are Dillon and RCBS.  I think the RCBS 2000 press has the absolute best priming system from a safety standpoint, although if you don't buy your primers in strips you have to charge the strips yourself, so that can increase your reloading time cost.

So what is best?  Depends on what you want.  Anyone who says you can't load good ammo on a progressive is wrong, and anyone who says you can't load good ammo on a Lee is wrong.  What we are really talking about is time, money, and frustration.  A single stage press is usually a remarkably reliable tool, and turret presses as well.  When you get to progressives the cheaper the press, the more you will spend in time and frustration.  People who like to tinker usually do just fine with a Lee.

Many people have said that Lee has gotten more people into reloading than all other manufacturers combined, and that is largely due to price point.  Having worked with a bit of Lee gear over the years, I agree with this statement.  I can't prove it, but I agree with it.

In the last six months I've helped a few reloaders choose their first press, and so far once they have listened to me and another reloader, they have all chosen the Lee Turret press as their first press.  It isn't the best press on the market, but it is the best press for getting someone new to reloading into a system that can crank out ammo relatively quickly. Unfortunately finding one in stock is about as likely as finding ammo in stock, good luck in the current buying frenzy.

International Support, key to insurgent success

Recently WRSA posted a link about the revolutionary insurgencies in the Baltic states following WWII.  We know that the Soviet government was able to crush those insurgencies, and we have to ask the question, why?

The background is here  http://vilnews.com/?p=1739

Answer 1, no international support.  All successful revolutions that I can think of (including the American revolution) had extensive international support in terms of logistics, information operations, and legitimacy.

Answer 2, no serious political support.  The resistance fighters may have had all the local support that they needed to win on a tactical level, but no national identity to gain that international support.  The Estonian Government in Exile didn't form until the resistance had largely been made inconsequential. 

Answer 3, very good timing on the part of Soviet Russia.  Had Germany not started WWII a blatant land grab in the form of illegal annexation would have been clearly denounced by the international community.  In terms of WWII the allies were willing to have a monster on their side (Stalin) to beat the monster on the other side (Hitler).

If we take those lessons learned and apply them to the current US situation, you end up with some very uncomfortable questions.

1, who in the international community would be willing to support enemies of the US government?

2, who in the "resistance" can form a credible political entity that has legitimacy in the national and international community?  Think of all that Ben Franklin did as an ambassador to France.

3, be careful of "good timing."  Stalin never let a crisis go to waste, neither will any other politician.

Bad Habits

Good shooters work to overcome their bad habits that slow their time down and degrade accuracy.

You should too, even if you aren't a good shooter, yet.

This post is really about bad habits, but first we need to go on a tangent and discuss one of the more difficult aspects of combat marksmanship, shooting a moving target.

The fastest shooters I know who get lead on target are competitive shotgunners.  These men and women routinely swing their shotguns into an arc and pull the trigger, knowing exactly that the shot meet their target at a pre-arranged place in the sky with their target.

Snipers do something similar with moving targets (lead and trap techniques), but usually at much greater distances, and with the assistance of a spotter.

Shooting where the target will be is a perishable skill, and it is a skill that many of us don't have the facilities to train on with a regular basis (at least for rifle).  There is a huge difference shooting at an incoming infantryman who is zig zagging across the battlefield towards your position in short bursts than a static target that presents itself.

The best training aid I've ever used for shooting moving targets is the Engagement Skills Trainer 2000.  This is the Army's really big video game that costs millions of dollars, but saves millions more in terms of ammo not expended, barrels not worn out, and other logistical field costs (generators, medical equipment, even MREs).

So why did we discuss shooting a moving target when really talking about bad habits?  Because if you do a bad habit every single time, you can still shoot clays, or lead/trap a moving target.  But you must be consistent.  You'll find that once you break yourself of that bad habit you'll have to relearn the skill the right way.

Now, back to bad habits.  If you do the same thing consistently every time, even if it is not optimal, you are better off than the guy who has never practiced a skill.  When it comes to training a new grunt, I don't want him to have any habits, good or bad, that get in the way of creating a Soldier who can deliver effective fire.

In combat, I would rather have a guy who had consistent habits, even if he is a half second slower on a combat reload than a guy with perfect technique.  Because when you train together as a team, if Joey is a half second slower every time, you know you have to cover him for that extra half second of time, every time.

This is my personal preference.  There a lot of experts out there who would much rather train the bad habits out of all their grunts.  If you have the time and resources, by all means go that route.  In the real world we often don't.

In the martial arts world people like to argue who would win, a Black Belt in Karate or a Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do.  Everyone thinks their kung fu is superior.  That is utter BS.  You don't know who will win a fight by style.  Think of a chessboard, every piece is visible to every player, there is no "fog of war" but at the beginning of the game you can't tell who will win, and who will lose.  The better player, fighter, or Soldier has the better chance of winning (Murphy always gets a say) but nothing is ever a foregone conclusion.

So if you have bad habits, at least make them consistent bad habits.  Take the time to get better as you can, get a trainer or coach if you can even if it is just your buddy watching your technique and giving you feedback.  If you can't do that, get a cheap camcorder and record yourself.

React to Contact

The training basis of all elite Light Infantry units is the "React to Contact" battle drill.  Any unit can train on ambushes, and raids, and pull them off successfully, but only the truly proficient can react to an ambush and fight through it.

Max Velocity has a piece that spurred this post here: http://maxvelocitytactical.blogspot.com/2013/05/combat-rifle-solid-basics-to-keep-you.html  Please read that before you read this.

When you are on patrol, and you take contact, you absolutely must return fire immediately and seek cover.  You need to do this without thinking about it.  Once you have done this, you have reached a decision point.  You Observed enemy fire, Oriented on the known and likely locations and executed the first part of your battle drill, return fire and seek cover.

Welcome to the big "D" of leadership, deciding if you have enough combat power to attack and destroy the enemy, or deciding that you don't have enough combat power and therefore will break contact (call it a rearward movement, a retreat, hell I don't care, but the point is you decided to get out of the enemy's beaten zone).

Contact can come from a "meeting encounter" when a BLUFOR and OPFOR patrol stumble into each other, or it can be the BLUFOR walking into an OPFOR ambush.  The Army lists 8 forms of contact, suffice to say that what type of contact (save for digital) is less important than what you do about it.

In Vietnam enemy soldiers who walked into an American ambush were well and truly screwed.  Ambushes became the staple tactic of elite units.  Between small arms fire, Claymore mines, and heavy indirect fire (and or attack aircraft) the NVA or VC were outgunned.

The NVA and VC also knew the power of the ambush, and used their machineguns to very good effect when they fought from prepared positions.  Crew served weapons are a real asset on the battlefield, and knowing how to use them to achieve maximum effect has largely been reduced to a science at this point.

Anyways, if I were a guerilla light infantry leader, my default choice is to break contact.  This is not the sexy answer, but in terms of fighting through a prepared enemy ambush  and running away to set up my own ambush when the bastards chase me, I'll choose to do my fighting on my terms on terrain I find favorable.

John Mosby has said that you must close with and destroy the enemy to win.  I agree with that, however when you are generally outgunned by a logistically superior force, you need to fight smart.

So you've reached the "D" and you decided to break contact, this means laying down enough fire to keep the other side hunkered down while you move out.  This requires disciplined fire and maneuver.  One shoots, the other bounds back, gets set, and starts firing so his buddy can move.

Suppressive fire is about an effect, not about number of rounds fired.  If you whing a bullet over a guys ear every time he pops his head up, you don't need to waste ammo firing over him.  A rifleman out there who dings one off my helmet gets a helluva lot more respect in making me keep my head down than a guy who kicks up dirt around me.  Use aimed, accurate fire, as needed to achieve suppression.  Don't just pull your trigger like a spasmatic nincompoop.

Once you have achieved a break in contact, you need to account for all men, weapons, and equipment (MWE) and figure out your next move.  Know where you are.  Know where the enemy was.  Move to a place where you have the advantage.

Did Johnny pick up a bullet to the leg?  Somebody slapped a tourniquet on him right?  Did Joey blow through half his basic load? Cross level ammo.  Did Jimmy drop the comms gear?  What is your alternate method of communication?

All these little details are why elite Light Infantry units train on "React to Contact."  Leaders at all levels know that if you can react to contact in a disciplined manner, you can do pretty much anything else.

The great ammo shortage of 2013

Years ago I started buying a bulk pack of 22 long rifle rimfire every payday.  Kim Do Toit said it was a good idea, and I couldn't fault his logic, so I figured, "why not?"

This last week, during the ammo crunch of 2013, I sold five bulk packs, three Remington Golden Bullet and two old red box Federal Bulk.  I asked 30 dollars a box, for ammo that I paid 10 to 20 dollars a box for back when rimfire was cheap and plentiful.

A friend of mine in south Tennessee saw bricks of bulk rimfire going for twice what I asked, which I think is crazy because for that price you can get some of the match grade imported rimfire.

Going through the "storage box of rimfire" that holds all the bulk packs I have left, I seem to have bought a whole bunch of Federal AutoMatch, and blue box Federal Champion.  In my experience you can't really go wrong with either load for "precision plinking" out of any rifle you care to shoot.  I still have a couple bricks of Eley primed Aguila, it shot well but not enough so that I'll buy it again any time soon.  In rimfire, incremental increases in accuracy seem to be accompanied by a steep rise in price.  But it costs money to win, and match shooters are generally in it to win it.

On another note, I've never had good luck with a Ciener conversion kit for ARs, the barrel twist is just too fast which seems to cause excess bullet imbalance.  I've used 1:7 and 1:9 twist barrels, and never got 22lr to shoot inside of an inch at 25 meters.  For CQB training I don't have any problems with the conversion kit, but shooting tennis balls is a much bigger target than a 1" square.

Right now I have two 22's in my stable, a Chiappa M4 upper that I have extensively modified and a Zastava Z5 (branded as a Remington R5).  The bolt action 22 is a pleasure to shoot, and accuracy is very good.  The Chiappa has given me nothing but trouble, although I replaced the plastic upper receiver with a slabside aluminum receiver, which changed the geometry of where the barrel ended up.  I haven't shot the dang thing yet, but Now that the barrel sits more forward in the receiver the bolt assembly seems to be lining up correctly with the hammer, and I'm hoping the light strike issues go away.

Once the "ammo crunch of 2013" is over I think I'll go back to buying 325 round packs of Fed Automatch and 525 round packs of Federal Champion.  I won't turn my nose up at 333 round packs of Winchester, but unless things get really bad, I think my days of buying Remington Golden Bullet bulk packs are behind me.  As it stands now, I have more than enough rimfire to keep me happy for a long time.

But since I've transitioned to air rifle (a quality air rifle costs just as much as a quality rimfire rifle, or more) for the bulk of my marksmanship training I've started stocking up on pellets.  You can't say "no" to 500 pulls of the trigger for less than ten bucks.

Muzzle movement

In the really terrible movie "Wanted" actors could bend bullets by moving the firearm in some grotesque spasmatic fashion.

Shooting while moving won't let you bend bullets.  But you will have to pull the trigger while the muzzle is moving.  Yes the lateral movement of the bullet will have a deflection on ballistics, but like a firefly landing on the very tip of the deck of the USS Nimitz, you won't be able to tell the difference.

Now unless you are a benchrester you are influencing the movement of the muzzle significantly with the equipment you use to isolate the rifle from your body.  F Class shooters use a bipod to achieve the same effect, transferring the support from human anatomy to something inanimate.  However, even pulling the really light trigger can tweak a shot.

Olympic level shooters air rifle shooters can talk about "moving into the X, out of the X, or still on the X" when it comes to shooting.  And they are standing still, wrapped in a shooting uniform designed to restrict movement.  I'll bring this up again.

So how much do you think your muzzle moves while doing the Groucho walk at a brisk pace?  A significant amount.  But with training you can still be very "combat accurate" at point blank ranges (with a 5.56 rifle this is inside 200 meters).

Hitting where you want is all about aligning the sight properly with the target, and having the trigger break when the sights are properly aligned.  When I have to "shoot and move" at the same time I start my trigger pull before my sights are fully on target, and I try to time the trigger break so that the bullet impacts the general area where I'm aiming.  Inside of 25 meters this is easily a tennis ball size group.  Inside of 200 meters it works plenty fine for a chest shot.

This technique I'm describing is absolutely horrible from a marksmanship fundamentals perspective, but it is the same technique that an M1A2 Abrams tank uses to fire on the move.  The tank barrel is not stabilized, but the sighting system is, and an interrupt device delays the firing of the cartridge until the barrel bounces back into alignment with the sights, either going into the X, out of the X, or steady on the X.

And really, that is what you want to be, whether you are an Olympic level shooter, some dude trying to fight his way out of a really bad situation, or a tank gunner destroying BMPs while crossing country at 35 miles per hour.  Accurate.  Accuracy is the number one discriminator between effective and ineffective fires.