Review of 'Contact!' by Mountain Guerrilla

Thanks to John Mosby of  the Mountain Guerrilla Blog for taking the time to do a thorough review of 'Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival.'

Read the review on his blog HERE

Thanks also to WRSA for linking to the review HERE with links to the book on Amazon HERE

LOL to Mosby for pointing out how I failed to use the word MNEMONIC aid, using instead 'PNUEMONIC'. How I felt like a fool when that was pointed out to me before! I have changed that with the new edit.

There was a good point of constructive criticism in the review that I have taken on board: It's interesting that when I basically re-wrote and re-worked 'Contact' to turn it into the other book 'Rapid Fire', I added a certain amount more of personal anecdotes. I even added a little section on it. Mainly because Rapid Fire was designed mainly for those working in high threat and combat environments so that stuff was right up there as relevant.
I stayed away from that with Contact because I did not want it to appear that I was simply regurgitating 'stuff that I did over there'. I wanted Contact to be designed for prepper scenarios in CONUS collapse type scenarios, and not dismissed a simply a soldier telling people to do what he 'did over there' when he had 'all that backup' etc.
It is also true that the tactics that I write, extracted in the main from the overarching doctrine and my training, are also formed by my personal experience of 'how I actually did them' even when I do not state the specific anecdote. That is an aspect that I will take on board and have to look at for a potential third reworking, perhaps as an official 'second edition' at some point in the future.

Much appreciated.

Update on 'Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises'

I am running through some edits, taking into consideration feedback I have been getting from both blog comments and also some beta readers. The prologue is now amended. I hope to publish shortly after the New Year.

It takes up to seven days for the CreateSpace book to populate onto Amazon once published, and longer through other outlets. It will be immediately available in the CreateSpace estore once published.

I will keep the updates coming.

You may have read that the book was originally designed as a 'tactical fiction' to bring to life the concepts explained in 'Contact!'. It has remained true to that, but I have also done my best to write a stand-alone novel, not just a tactics fest.

I feel some pressure to get the book out there, simply because I feel that the knowledge is increasingly urgently needed as part of the preparations of Patriotic Americans.

Time appears to be running short.

I hope I am wrong.

Are you ready?

Interesting Article: Insiders Warn of More False Flags to Confiscate Guns

From Activist Post: Insiders Warn of More False Flags to Confiscate Guns

5.56 Arrived!

It's still out there - courtesy of Dans Ammo. Arrived today, great service.

Still on backorder with Brownells for some more PMags.

Are you ready?

Published on APN: 'Being Prepared while Traveling for Work'

I was recently published on APN.

The article was co-authored with Stephanie Dayle who is an APN contributor. She asked for my perspective on being prepared for being stranded in another city while on business travel, due to an event happening while you were away. The article specifically considered the traveller being female.

Here is a LINK to the article.

Patriot Dawn - Prologue!

Here is a copy of the Prologue to 'Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises.'

Feedback is welcome. Thanks to WRSA for sending the 'Regime Flag' that I had tried to describe in the text. I amended my original description to match the one shown below. I need to figure out if I can actually use the image in the book, or if it is covered by copyright.

 

 

Prologue 

The election on November 6 2012 had been the mortal blow to the ideal of America. The stakes could not have been higher or more straightforward: a choice between freedom or coercion, individualism or collectivism, modern civilization or uncivilized brutalism.

 

           America, those of her voting and abstaining majority, chose the latter option in each case. The forces of this late modern brutalism had been at work in America for a long time and had, of course, scored many victories. The progressive beast had slowly eaten away at America's educational establishment, the character of her people, and moral virtue, leaving little of the true American values behind. The sad thing was that the indoctrinated generations did not even realize what they had lost, while they tinkered over minor social issues.

 

The terrorist attack was carried out by jihadist fighters. They came in by chartered airliner, landing to disgorge several hundred terrorists into an assault on Washington D.C. The flight plans of the terrorist controlled aircraft had called for a scheduled landing at Washington’s Dulles International Airport. However, that was considered too far away from DC, the Capitol and key targets such as the Pentagon. Reagan National was chosen instead.

The pilot of the aircraft was a US/Saudi joint citizen with impeccable English who had worked as a commercial pilot extensively in the US; he had plenty of experience landing at US airports, including Dulles and Reagan National.

As the pilot flew south towards DC, he put out a bogus Mayday call, citing engine power failure, and announced that he was going to have to put the plane down at Reagan National.

The control tower at Reagan declined, ordering him to continue to Dulles, but he simply told them that he was experiencing power failure and that they needed to clear the runway because he was coming in hard and fast. They obliged and scrambled the emergency services.

The Boeing 777 came in on the difficult river approach from the north, passing close to the Washington Mall; the pilot brought the plane in for a hard landing and began to taxi towards the terminal. He tried to ignore the instructions of the ground guide vehicles but soon had his way blocked by airport police vehicles who had been alerted by the tower. International flights were not cleared to land at Reagan National, and this was highly suspicious.

Still out on the taxi-way, the terrorists pulled the emergency release on the doors and activated the emergency exit slides. Somewhere around two hundred fighters began to pour out onto the tarmac, fueled by drugs and fanaticism and heavily armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices, including a number of suicide vests. They opened fire on the emergency crews and police and started to run towards the terminals.

Some split off from the main group and commandeered airport pick-up trucks on the tarmac and headed out onto the pan to where the delayed passenger aircraft were waiting at the end of the runway to take off.

They drove along the taxi way, stopping only to fire volleys of RPGs into the aircraft, which were loaded with passengers and fuel. The planes began to burn and as the jet fuel ignited they began to explode. The resulting fire and explosions were apocalyptic and soon the taxi way was engulfed in a conflagration of flames and burning fuel.

Meanwhile, the main body smashed their way into the terminal buildings and began to kill as they fought their way through to the passenger drop off and taxi ranks at the front. The armed security did not stand a chance. The fighters began to commandeer vehicles, any one would do. Civilians were shot down and murdered out the front of the terminal buildings and teams of four fighters stole the vehicles and started to head out into traffic and towards the city.

There was mass panic in the terminals, but as the crowds tried to escape they were engaged by assault weapon fire and hundreds were murdered. Pipe bombs had been dropped in the terminal on timers and as the fighters began to move away in their stolen vehicles the bombs began to detonate.

Each group had a specific target and objective. They had studied transit maps, photos and satellite photos on Google earth. They had objectives but they realized that not all of them would make those objectives – if so, the plan was simply to keep going for as long as possible, causing as much damage as they could before they were stopped.

A group of fifty did not even bother to look for cars; they ran towards the Pentagon, which was only about a mile away just across the I-395. The group simply formed a file on each side of the road, trotted up the airport access road, turning north along the Jefferson Davis Highway until they passed under the Interstate.

As they jogged along, they engaged any resistance with automatic fire, AKs carried at the hip. As they passed under the I-395 underpass they fanned out into their assault teams and attacked the Pentagon. They used RPG rockets and breaching charges to blast their way in and began to fight their way through the corridors inside.

Meanwhile, the alert had gone out to the Washington DC Metro police and within fifteen minutes they had a cordon up around the city. There were a large number of armed federal agents, working for numerous ‘alphabet’ agencies, within DC. However, they were not really prepared for the sort of savage urban conflict that these jihadists brought, straight from the battlegrounds of the Middle East.

Local SWAT teams from the DC Metro area were drafted into the battle, later joined by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team from Quantico, Virginia, who came in by helicopter to join the fight.

By this time the jihadists had smashed the police roadblocks and fought their way across the bridges into the city. Those that found themselves in the open parklands around the capital did not fare so well, but others smashed their way into the city and invested the urban environment.

Mass panic ensued and it took the callout of a US Marine Battlegroup from Quantico and the addition of two available Navy SEAL teams from Norfolk to turn the tide of the fight and clear the jihadist fighters out from where they had gone to ground.

It took a week and the deaths of thousands of Americans before the terrorist threat was eliminated.

 

The terrorist attackers were reported to have been recruited, abetted, directed and sponsored by Iran, although the details were unclear and it appeared that an investigation was not the top priority of the Administration.

How had the terrorists managed to charter this plane, which had apparently originated in Dubai on a one stop flight to the US, loading it with two hundred heavily armed fighters, without alerting any suspicion?

However, the focus following the attack was not international but domestic, and the priority was the ‘safety and security’ of the public by the accelerated implementation of the massive domestic surveillance and policing drive.

Fear was paramount and the masses were even more convinced that giving up their freedom and rights was in their best interests for their ‘safety and security’. Many internet bloggers and alternative media sites were describing the attack as a ‘False Flag’, abetted by the ‘Powers That Be’, but those crackpots were soon shut down by the Department of Homeland Security, in order to prevent further ‘panic mongering’.

The attack also provided the justification for war against Iran. However, that war was prosecuted by the Administration in the form of a primarily naval and air campaign that limited the involvement of ground troops.

This limitation allowed for the deployment of troops as convenient to the agenda of the Administration and the military-industrial complex, but ensured that sufficient active duty units remained available for domestic operations.

The attack on Iran was however the final straw that preceded the total meltdown of the Middle East.

As part of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, measures were in place to allow Posse Comitatus laws to be ignored domestically. This was activated by executive order and active duty and reserve Army units were used to reinforce the National Guard in operations against domestic terrorists and sleeper cells.

The terrorist attack had precipitated the final mortal blow to liberty and the destruction of the United States of America as a Constitutional Republic. It was true that the erosion of liberty and the Bill of Rights had been going on for some time; the Constitution was viewed by many as a dead document, and the measures had already been put in place for the implementation of a State of Emergency.

The attack had been a terrible thing, but at the same time it was so convenient to the agenda of the Administration. Everything since the attack had been the death rattle of liberty as the police surveillance state was fully imposed.

Due process and habeus corpus were suspended, and the NDAA allowed arrest and internment without probable cause or trial on the simple suspicion by the authorities that someone posed a terrorist threat; a system that was easily abused.

Everything in society was now centered around compliance and obedience to authority. Questioning of the orders of those in authority positions was not tolerated. America was no longer the land of the free, but anyone with a mind had seen that coming for a long time.

Anyone with ideas counter to the official line, or who argued or challenged authority, was labeled a ‘domestic terrorist’, arrested and interned in ‘corrective and reeducation facilities’.

Following the activation of the NDAA by Executive Order, a state of emergency was implemented. It was necessary, because another terrorist attack could happen at any time, and anyone could be a terrorist. There was a lot of talk about sleeper cells and many citizens were arrested and interned without trial. ‘Extremist terrorist’ organizations, including patriot and conservative organizations such as the Tea Party, were outlawed.  

It wasn’t really clear to the general public exactly what happened next, given that they only got their information from the Regime via the heavily State directed mainstream media, and the internet was now under heavy lockdown. However, the economic dangers that had been looming and fueled by the continuous policy of ‘Quantitive Easing’, or money printing by the Federal Reserve, finally came home to roost.

The economy went over the cliff. There was much discussion that the actual precipitator of the plunge was the cabal of bankers who were the real power behind the Regime; they had pulled the financial plug, causing a massive run on the banks and hyperinflation, just like they had done in 1929 to cause the Great Depression. But who really knew, given the lockdown?

The effect was ultimately to cripple the economy, destroying the middle classes. What better way to turn the screws of citizen compliance when so many were now reliant on entitlement handouts?

The ‘progressive’ agenda of collective socialism was nearing its ultimate fulfillment; coerced redistribution of wealth, except now no-one was generating any wealth to feed the monster of the dependent welfare classes.

Statist authoritarian big central government was the order of the day, even though those policies spelled the death of the country. Many ‘progressives’ yearned for that, so that the United Socialist States of America could rise from the ashes.

However, what the Administration had not predicted was that the Chinese, themselves suffering from the global financial collapse that ensued from this, then decided to take action.

For years China had infiltrated American cyber networks. They had perfected the cyber-attack and had penetrated into all aspects of American networks. They were able to ‘weaponize’ the cyber-attack, taking control of infrastructure such as power plants and programming them to fail while causing widespread outages and damage to power grid infrastructures.

 There was no longer any reason to need America anymore, now that there was no money to be made from the previously symbiotic relationship. China and Russia were best served by destroying America and the petrodollar, carving out their own spheres of influence in the new world order.

Three months after the terrorist attack and the beginning of the run on the banks, China simply took down the North American power grid.

It was not a permanent or total attack, but it did enough damage and would be time consuming to repair, given that most of the replacement equipment would have to be shipped in from abroad where it was manufactured. This resulted in massive infrastructure failure with essential commodities such as food and fuel unable to be distributed.

When the shortages hit the stores, combined with the inability of the Regime to distribute and honor electronic benefit checks to the entitlement classes, the effect was massive civil disorder and rioting, on a scale that the Regime could not fully control. The collapse was self-promulgating; it was not easy to fix once the dominos started falling.

The main rioting took place in the urban centers where the mass of entitlement dependents resided. The Regime was brutal in its crackdown on its ‘children’. Millions perished from a combination of lawless violence, the brutality of the Regime’s response, and starvation.

The Regime wrested control back in the main urban centers across the country, declared Martial law, and commenced to consolidate its power. Given the general food shortage, it aided the Regime that they controlled the food reserves, and according to the ‘Dictate’ of the executive orders and the NDAA, Federal agencies such as FEMA and the DHS were able to commandeer private and commercial food reserves.

Many citizens ‘bugged out’ of the urban centers into the countryside to escape the violence, and thus out of the immediate control of the Regime, which precipitated another crisis of refugees and transit gridlock by those unprepared and bugging out to ‘nowhere’.

Out of the ashes of this disaster, the Regime was able to rise. Martial Law was declared and Federal safe zones created, along with FEMA camps where food rations were distributed. While the grid was being rebuilt, the FEMA offices and camps ran on emergency generators to support the registration and tracking process.

Outside of those zones were the contested areas where military operations were conducted to subdue the population. The Regime concentrated on controlling these main zones as well as mobility corridors connecting them.

Outside of the zones, the country was divided into sectors of martial law, each sector the responsibility of a military governor backed by a political commissioner from the Regime. The Department of Homeland Security was responsible for domestic military operations. National Guard and Active Duty units were allocated to the DHS as necessary.

FEMA also made use of the FEMA Homeland Corps. This was primarily a youth organization of armed paramilitaries, formed before the collapse, who were trained and indoctrinated by the Regime and given paramilitary police powers. They were not old enough to understand the real history of the United States beyond the propaganda taught in the school system and they had no familiarity with the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

They became inoculated against brutality and were used for the more flagrant breaches of liberty, such as house raids to confiscate weapons and food, where often whole families were killed. In their blue SWAT style overalls, these young thugs became known as the ‘blue shirts’.

In fact, the Regime had experienced problems with many of the actual combat veterans among the ranks of the National Guard, Active Duty Army, and even Law Enforcement. Some of them took their Oaths seriously and refused to act illegally against citizens. These types were severely cracked down upon, those that had not deserted or escaped out of the zones.

Those veterans that were captured or who refused illegal orders were often taken into mental institutions against their will, on the pretext of mental illness or PTSD, for ‘treatment’ that often involved severe drug therapy that left them mentally incapacitated, shadows of their former selves.

Others saw the writing on the wall and deserted, getting out and away from the zones, often taking weapons and equipment with them.

However, there was a flip side to the refusal to obey orders to fire on citizens: as good Americans, many of these veterans actually found it easy to fire on the entitlement ‘eaters’ that they came across in the worst of the inner city riots. In their eyes, these eaters were the antithesis of how America was intended. Once they had pulled the trigger though, there was no going back, and they were lost on the slippery slope.

A new constitution was written, termed the ‘Homeland Charter’. This new document rejected the original Constitution and declared all those supporting it to be domestic terrorists.

There was much deliberate obfuscation between sleeper cells allegedly related to the ‘Iranian’ terror attack on DC, and domestic ‘constitutionalist’ terrorists, who were often simply patriots and preppers.

The old Constitution had led to the destruction of the country, according to the revisionist agenda of the ‘progressive’ regime and the ‘doublethink’ mental illness that plagued America. Individual Liberty was the enemy; the only salvation was in the collective. The agenda of the progressives was complete.

‘New Citizens’ had to swear an oath of allegiance to the Regime, to obey all laws and orders given to them by those in authority. They were fitted with subcutaneous RFID chips containing all personal information. Cash was outlawed and the chips allowed the GPS tracking of people. It was therefore easy to determine someone’s status simply by scanning their forearm, and if no chip was present they were an outlaw, to be arrested or shot on sight.

As part of this new direction, the flag was redesigned. Rather than the stripes, there was a red and white sunray effect radiating out from a central, slightly offset to the left, sun-like circle in blue and white.The lower part of the ‘O’ like circle had an effect similar to the radiating red and white stripes, but more horizontally across the bottom of the ‘O’. A shining symbol of the bright future of collective socialism.. The new flag was supposed to signify ‘hope’ or some similar progressive garbage.

 

The star spangled banner was relegated to ‘patriots’ and subversives. Patriots, constitutionalists, libertarians and anyone who had prepared for the collapse were demonized and tracked down. Those who were not sworn to the new regime were either interned or executed if they were under direct Regime control.

The citizens of the new Regime lived hand to mouth on government handouts, working in State sponsored jobs and living in camps or state controlled housing, cowed but grateful that they were being kept safe from the outlaws and terrorists outside of the zones.

Many who had not been aware of the true danger of the creeping progressive agenda were rudely awakened after the collapse. ‘Normalcy bias’ was swept away and their eyes were opened to the true horror of where their great country had descended to.

The FEMA camps were no holiday camp: those who had elected or been forced into them found that due to a combination of corruption, incompetence and simple brutality, rations were meager and conditions basic. They were more like concentration camps, with oppressive rules enforced by sullen guards, quick to violence. Many in the camps were simply taken out and killed for being trouble makers, tossed into mass graves and left to rot in piles.

Many could not understand how the military could be used against citizens. With rioters, it was easy. For the innocent preppers and patriots who were considered domestic terrorists, it was also easy: it was all a matter of information management. Regime strike teams under the DHS were simply briefed that a ‘target’ housed ‘domestic terrorists’ who were harboring food, weapons and even explosives.

The targets were hit hard in ‘no knock’ raids with unrestrictive rules of engagement, often resulting in everyone at the target being killed, including whole families in some cases. If the target was found to contain innocent preppers, it was no problem. It was not the first time even before the collapse that the wrong address was hit or ‘intelligence’ was found to be incorrect. Heavy handed SWAT ‘kill squad’ tactics were fine as long as ‘department procedures’ were followed.



 



Contact! - Revised and Updated

I had some good feedback from some good people about Contact. Now that I am waiting for Beta Testers to get back to me about Patriot Dawn, I've had the time to go back and revise and edit Contact.

It has an updated over and I have taken the advice about increasing readability seriously, going through and breaking up long paragraphs and working on the layout.

I have also added some new stuff to the book that has come to my attention since I originally published. Either that or it was topics that people responded to and found interesting on the blog - Aerial Thermal Surveillance is one, and now has a section in the book.

CreateSpace are doing their review process right now. When the new book cover (below) shows up on Amazon, it means that the new version is available.

No 5.56mm out there?

I was just looking at some online sites, loooking to do a resupply. I can't find any 5.56 ammo out there.

Is demand just huge right now, or has the supply been shut down?

Anyone?

On Guns

Thanks to WRSA for linking to this article HERE

There is a lot of good stuff out there in response to the school shooting. A lot of it is on American Thinker, a site which I find interesting.

There is limited comment that I can add. I will say these things:

1. It is an awful tragedy that those wonderful innocent children were taken in this way.

2. Now is not the time for acting irrationally.

3. The liberal establishment has wasted no time making anti-gun political capital out of it. Sickening.

4. We all know that the best way to protect schools, or to prevent them being the targets they have been turned into by making them 'gun free zones' would be to arm teachers, security guards, whatever. They don't have to scare the kids, they could be concealed carry. I saw a great suggestion about having a biometric safe that will open for any of the trained and qualified teachers, and will also alert police. Ideas like that are good solutions.

5. We all know that this is not really about what is best for the kids in schools. If it was, then the common sense solution of removing the 'gun free zones' would be adopted. It's really about a political agenda to use incidents like this to legislate guns out of society, removing the true purpose of the second amendment. Of course the socialists have to remove the second amendment and guns, because they want to impose the tyrannous government that the second amendment is there to protect against

The simple truth is that whatever your point of view on gun ownership, the practical aspect is that guns are out there in the US. Any attempts to take guns away from law abiding citizens will leave them unprotected against criminal elements. Criminals will always have guns, you will never remove them from society even if it was legal and ethical to do so.

The key thing is that any number of legal concealed carry holders would have been able to stop the shooter. Schools have been legislated as 'gun free zones' that have clearly become targets for cowards. Amend the law. Don't allow students guns, but teachers should be armed. Even many school police do not carry guns - what use are they against a shooter? By the time police arrive, kids will be dead.

Instead of teachers having to hide in closets, they should be armed, as well as security guards, to stand in front of the next school shooter, put him down, and protect the kids.
 

On Fighting

Firstly, note to self: don't get in a fight with John Mosby HERE

Which leads me on to some comments. The first thing you want to do with a fight, is avoid it. This applies equally well both now, and in any post-collapse type scenario.

To help you with that avoidance plan, you need to work on being alert and aware. Not only will that awareness help you spot and avoid potential threats, but it will also help deter those predators that are observing you, weighing up their chances.

Being alert, carrying yourself confidently, and looking like you have a chance of handling yourself will go a long way to avoid the fight. Don't look like a victim.

'Mindset' is a bit of a 'tacticool' expression, but it means well. If you are not in the business of getting into fights, you have to worry about it coming to you. If you are suddenly attacked by a blitz attacker, perhaps some kind of psycho, bent on your destruction, then it will be a big surprise and they will have a good chance of overwhelming you. So you have to be ready to go if surprised.

The advantage of a psycho blitz attacker is that they are prepared to go all the way. You are not only taken by surprise, but you are weighed down by all the baggage of not wanting to be in a fight, conditioned by society, worried about self defense laws etc. It is not a time for denial. If he does not take you out immediately, then you have to fight back. It's not a time for "Wait, try that again, I wasn't ready."

As for fighting styles, read Mosby's article. Lots of good stuff there. I haven't been in a fight in a long minute, but growing up in the UK it is true that without guns in society, there is a readiness to go to hand to hand fighting: No chance of the guy carrying concealed or having one in his truck - but he may have a claw hammer or knife under his jacket. Chuck out time at closing from the pubs was basically street fight time. As morals in society have crumbled, it is increasingly mob violence.

In the UK, most fighting is boxing based. On the streets, if you go to the ground you are most likely to be kicked into unconsciousness by his mates standing around. It's a bit of a mob thing. But there is more and more MMA in the UK, and thus grappling.

I don't truck with this advice about not punching people. Punch them in the head. If you can elbow or knee them, fine, but in the absence of that hit hard and fast as many times as you can until they go down and you can get away. That's the next point. If you can't avoid, defend aggressively, hit them with everything you have. Then, don't hang around for awards, get away.

If you do get in a fight, however cool your martial arts training is, expect to get hurt. Chin down, eyes up, prepare to take it and wade in to hand it back to him. Its not pretty and no-one will really win. If you can walk or run away from it, you have succeeded.

If you do get taken to the ground - and most people in the US train in Jiu-Jitsu/MMA so it is likely that they will at least try, know what to do to get out of it. You can't just be a stand up fighter and expect to get away with it.

That leads on to escalation of force. In this post I have not really been discussing weapons, but if you have them be prepared to escalate in proportion to the level of force being used against you. And it is not a medieval jousting tournament, so be prepared to over-match them. There is no chivalry in a street fight. Use force proportionate and 'reasonable' in the circumstances.

As for styles, whatever floats your boat. Just train in something that will allow you to damage the bad guy. Interestingly, like Mosby, I trained at school in Judo. I was on the team. I remember taking punches in school yard type fights while I closed, threw and clinched them. Seeing stars as punches come flying in is not cool; once I was forced to my knees by a flurry of punches before I managed to get in and finish it.

I decided that I needed to learn how to punch, so when I got to College I started Thai Boxing. That really does teach you how to inflict punishment, but you have to be able to take it too. In more recent years, when I get a moment, I do a bit of Filipino Kali. What I like about that is the reaction training to at least do something to avoid an incoming punch, stick, knife. As I get older, I like the idea more and more of not taking a whack to the head.

Granted, I'm no black belt, and when the fight starts, the adrenalin pumps and it all goes a little crazy. That's the time when you go back to what you know, which usually involves trying to punch the living crap out of the other guy. Mosby has a lot of good to say about that, in terms that whoever really has their mind in the fight, will usually overwhelm the opponent.

So, you have to be able to get a little crazy. 'Controlled aggression". If you are actually crazy, then in the words of Miranda Lambert at the excellent concert I took my wife to not so long ago: "Hide your crazy (girl)"

If you are surprised by a blitz attacker, then you have to instantly turn on the crazy, not freezing or living in denial.

If you get pissed at that douche bag in the other car who just cut you up and gave you the finger, that is not fighting. That is both unlawful and probably bullying. Mostly, that person is emboldened by being in their vehicle and is probably one of the 90% or maybe 99% of people that with a little training and aggression  you can learn to overcome.

But remember, there is always a badder dude in the valley, always someone tougher than yourself. Like Mosby. Or maybe you are sick, exhausted and/or hungry, not on your top game.

Back to the first point: AVOID.

Reading Mosby's comment on a youth in the Ranger Battalion, it seems very similar/familiar to the Parachute Regiment. Here's another thing: avoid alcohol. Here's  a couple of anecdotes on Max's youth, back in the UK where drinking starts at 18 years old, or whenever, and alcohol is a problem mixed with a violent society.

1. Youthful Max is in a nightclub. Opponent number one is making a pass at his sister. Angry Max doesn't like it and becomes blitz attacker. Opponent doesn't know what hit him, goes down like a bag of manure. Later, Max is more drunk. Gets in a staring competition, like a couple of monkeys, with some dude. Some dude clotheslines Max and follows it through with a sort of drunken falling attack. As they fall, Max manages to flip it so he ends up on top, and proceeds to punch the living crap out of other dude. Looking up, a man is standing nearby in the crowd, holding a beer and looking impressed. "You better get out of here," he says to Max. Max heads for the door.
Unknown to Max, the doormen have seen this all on the cameras, or whatever, and have decided the best policy is to wait. As Max goes to exit, several hefty doormen are on him, locking him down and handing him over to the cops waiting outside.
Max instantly goes into 'shock of capture' and 'resistance to interrogation' mode. Maximum politeness to Mr. Policeman. Max sits in the front of the paddy wagon with Mr. Copper while he gets a good lecture. He is aided by the sounds of screaming chaos from the lunatics locked up in the back of the paddy wagon. Mr. Policemen has more to worry about than polite Max, so he lets him go. Didn't stop Max then having to fight another dude on the street while walking away. That's the UK nightclub scene for you.

2. Max is out in a neighborhood he should not be in, due to an Army course. Its the usual local vs army thing. Max finds himself separated and chatting to a good looking girl. Later, Max is outside the pub with the girl. As the six guys come at him, one of them cocking his fist to punch, Max makes the realization that this is his girlfriend, and he is alone. Max is not Jean Claude Van Damme; based on that knowledge, Max decides to break contact. As he runs, one of them gets close enough to tread on his heel, separating it from his shoe. Max is a young soldier and can run faster. He runs into a housing estate, terraced housing, and tries to evade by hiding in a front garden. Motion sensor light goes on. In Max's alcohol  addled brain, it's a trip flare. Contact again. Up over a garage roof and onto the terraced roofs goes Max, pursued by several of them. As he jumps down off the roofs on the far side, he sees that they have sent a cut off group round, in the form of one guy. Max knows he has to fight through this one guy. As he jumps down and advances, the guy puts his hands up and backs away. No stomach for a one on one fight.
Max breaks contact again and runs back up to the cross roads, jumping on a night bus. The driver askes him where to, Max says he doesn't know, just a pounds worth of fare, putting the coin down on the tray. As the bus leaves the stop, the group is pursuing it along the sidewalk. Max never got the girl.

Amusing, but it could have easily ended up with Max either in Jail or getting a good kicking on the sidewalk. Avoid drinking to excess, and avoid getting in fights.

Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises

My apologies for the dearth of posts lately. I have been fully committed to writing my first fiction book: 'Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises'

I have now written it, and I am entering the editing, rewriting, and finessing stage. I am still not certain on the exact specifics of the ending, but I'm pondering on it. I have a couple of alternatives.

For the ending, a lot depends on whether I have it in me for another book beyond this one, a sequel: how much to leave open for that possibility.

 

 

I hope to have the book out in January. 

Urban Anti-Armor Ambush

I have been immersed in writing 'Patriot Dawn'. It occurred to me that I have not posted recently, so I pulled this excerpt out of 'Rapid Fire! Tactics for High Threat, Protection and Combat Operations'. I was writing about an urban defense/battle scenario as part of the storyline, so this came to mind.

It is just 'a way' of pulling off a dismounted anti-armor ambush. The described technique assumes that you have some form of anti-armor weapons system, rocket type.

What is defilade? Defilade: a position from which the enemy can only engage you with direct fire, and observed indirect fire, when they are in your killing area. This means that as you are set up to hit the enemy from the flank, you will be tucked in behind a fold of ground, maybe in the side of a draw, so the enemy can’t see you before they appear in your killing area, when you hit them from the flank with enfilade fire. The idea is that they are advancing in a direction and you set up to hit them from the flank of their line of march, from defilade. This is the survival tactic for anti-armor troops in a general war scenario: the anti-tank weapons will be set up in defilade positions so that they engage the enemy from the flank (due to the weaker armor on the flank and rear of battle tanks and armored vehicles) and the enemy can’t see them or return fire until they are in the killing area. Imagine you were set to take out the school bully. You know that in the open playground he can take you down easy. So you get your baseball bat and wait round the corner of the alley. He can’t see you until he is in view from the alley i.e. in your killing area, whereupon you whack him on the head with your baseball bat from the side (flank) i.e. with an enfilade bat strike.

I could not figure out how to paste in the accompanying diagram, that is in the book.

Urban Anti-Armor Ambush

The aim of the anti-armor ambush is to destroy some or at minimum one advancing enemy armored vehicle and escape, not take on the whole enemy column, thus slowing them down and causing harassment and attrition.

The urban anti-armor (anti-tank) ambush is a specialist technique designed for an urban environment. Such an environment has, by design, streets, buildings, side streets and alleyways. These side streets or alleyways create natural defilade. They also create multiple decision points for the approaching enemy armor. The elements of an urban anti-armor ambush are the early warning, kill team, and cover group.

The way that it works is that the early warning team, which is possibly a buddy pair, will wait in an observation position where they can see which route the enemy armored vehicles will take. Obstacles could be used to help direct the enemy’s course of action better. The early warning team relays the message to the kill and cover teams, either by running or by radio, whichever works. The kill and cover teams will move into position. The kill team will occupy an alleyway or side street off the main street down which the enemy will come. The cover team will be further in depth, in a position to observe the ambush site, which probably means they are in a building further down the street from the ambush site.

The kill team will at minimum consist of the leader and two firers. The firers need to be armed with a weapon that is effective against armor, such as an RPG, AT-4 or LAW rocket system. (Alternatively they could have an off-route mine (Explosively Formed Penetrator type) and be ready to set it off, which is a different ambush technique). There must be two firers, side by side, in case of misfire or miss, and they will both fire at the same, usually lead, armored vehicle.

When the enemy vehicle is passing the alleyway mouth, and its weaker side armor is in view, the leader will order the ambush sprung and the firers will both simultaneously fire their weapons at the tank and then the group will turn and run out of their as fast as possible, headed for a rally point past the cover group, meeting up or running with the early warning team. The cover group will immediately open fire to cover their withdrawal.

It may be that the cover group does not have anti-armor weapons but this is not a problem, they are aiming to suppress and distract any infantry accompanying the armored column, allowing the ambush team to escape. Hopefully the destroyed vehicle will partially block the street and hinder follow up.

The cover group will then withdraw rapidly and all groups will meet up at the rally point, before moving rapidly off to their next fallback position as the attempt to hinder and attrite the advancing enemy armored column. It is also possible that in a larger city or AO, they could have vehicles cached and ready to extract in to another location.

Just some food for thought...

 

*FREE*: Flashback by Archer Garrett - All This Week (12/3 - 12/7)

Archer Garrett has made his novella 'Flashback' available for free on Amazon from Monday 12/3 to Friday 12/7.

HERE

Archer says:

The book is short, but I've tried to cram a lot into it. The story is Orwellian in nature in that a collectivist revolution has resulted in a tyrannical regime that has absolute power over all, except for a small, urban holdout that has managed to successfully repel the regime. The story takes place over the course of one night. The second half of the book is a discussion of morality, with a biblical argument against collectivism. Even if you are not a believer, I think the argument, if from none other than a historical perspective, shows that mankind has struggled against this ideology for much longer than most realize.

Anyway - I think the message is important, so I'm trying to get it out there.

It's free - why wouldn't you?

Body Armor/Plate Carrier Profile/Tactical Considerations!!

In the comments section to my Body Armor/Plate carrier post (followed up by supplentary posts on gear HERE and HERE), Matt Bracken left an excellent comment. I am reposting it here with the aim of kicking off a debate on the subject matter. Matt actually states that he's not trying to start off a debate, but it seems like a topic for a mature discussion, which will hopefully inform peoples opinions and lead to the growth of tactical knowledge.

Matt Bracken's comments are here:

I should have posted this reply here on this thread first, so here goes.

I have some reservations about hard plates for post SHTF. Soft concealed armor will be important for visiting the local shop-and-robs that might still be in business, but hard exterior body armor for civilians makes me wonder.

Modern soldiers wear it, but they are making a "deal" as soldiers. "I will follow orders and assault hard targets with people shooting at me. My chain of command will give me the best armor, and immediate advanced medical treatment in case I'm shot."

Little of this applies to civilians pere or post SHTF. First, you should avoid assaulting hard targets unless absolutely forced to by circumstance. You are not Superman, and there is no field hospital a short helo ride away. As a post SHTF civilian, if you get shot with a rifle bullet one inch outside the hard plate, you are a dead man, and your family just lost their #1 defender and provider.

To the extent that a hard plate makes you feel "bullet proof," they may actually cause you to take more risks than are necessary. Soldiers have medics leading all the way to hospitals to take care of that sucking chest wound: you do not. You must adapt the tactics of stealth and avoidance. Travel light, travel at night. Sneakypete is the way to go. Not Rambo, weighed down like a modern soldier.

The most dangerous enemy will be the guy with a scoped rifle you never saw. You must not be seen to avoid his fire. If you are walking in the open wearing top-heavy body armor, it will be obvious, and the sniper will make a head or pelvis shot.

To survive SHTF, don't try to load out like Rambo. Be like the VC in black pajamas, moving like a ninja, in the shadows, in the treelines and gullies, never seen. Even wearing hard body armor, to be seen is to be shot, in a USA with tens of millions of scoped rifles floating around.

I'm not trying to start a debate, but merely to point out that there are differing views on armor's usefulness, pros and cons. My training was from VN-era SEALs, and it was all about stealth. The body armor of that era (1980s) was too heavy and not rifle-proof, so we didn't wear armor at all. Plus, we were often in a watery environment, or around water, and a water escape or infil/exfil route was always a consideration.

In general, we tried to be light and streamlined, more like a slippery unseen VC than the modern Robocop soldier coming down the street in a vehicle. That philosophy is still ingrained in this "old-timer." (I'm 55, but I still run.)

Max Velocity's comments: Matt's comments are very well informed and well taken. Give it some serious consideration.

I will add my two cents, in the spirit of adding value rather than arguing. Matt's approach is excellent. I have banged on at great length in my writings, including my books, about the need to AVOID trouble as a first strategy. I have also banged on about the differences in profile, or posture, between high and low profiles, which you could also call covert or overt posture. You need to consider your posture and how appropriate it is in the circumstances.

However, I feel strongly that if you are potentially going to get into a gunfight, then you would be well served with ballistic rifle plates. As is often the case, it comes down to "METT-TC' which is just a military way of saying that the approach depends on the situation and circumstances in which you find yourself. The stealthy approach is good, but you may not always be able to dictate the circumstances in such a way, and therefore it may be useful to have the body armor.

Military body armor is often bulky in a way that civilian body armor is not always. I would rather be wearing a plate carrier with ballistic rifle plates, including perhaps side plates, than a fully concealable soft vest, which maybe only NIJ level II or III and therefore only stopping handgun rounds.

Full body armor with soft armor  and plates can be bulky, but I personally have a set that I often wore under shirts. An approach that I have taken on mission is to adapt the profile to the mission and circumstances. With either a full set of armor or a plate carrier that is not too bulky, you can hide it under a shirt, at least to a certain extent. You can then carry a man-bag and/or day pack for your ammo load.

Body armor gets bulky once you add the pouches to turn it into a full tactical load vest. Once you do that, it gets so it is not concealable, and moves into the realm of Matt Bracken's description. Such armor however would be useful for tactical operations and things such as defense, including movement in vehicles. Also the tactical body armor covers, even without pouches, tend to  be bulky, covered with MOLLE webbing etc. A way to get around this is to have the pouches mounted on an over armor tactical vest or alternative such as a chest rig and/or battle belt. This makes your gear modular and allows you to wear the body armor alone, in a soft fabric civilian cover, or to put the tactical vest on over top and go fully tactical.

I would question the utility of wearing just soft armor which is only protected against handgun calibers. The bigger threat is rifle, including the scoped rifles that Matt refers to. I would rather, if going low profile, wear a slimline plate carrier  or full set of body armor that would fit nicely under a shirt. This would protect against rifle and handgun rounds, and can still be relatively low profile. It would not give you that soldier appearance that Matt refers to.

Back when I joined the army in the early 90s, body armor was not the thing. It has now reached a technical and price point where it is a real option. You don't have to be a soldier attacking hard targets to find a use with body armor. I have worn it on high risk missions where the plan was to run away from enemy contact. Those were both high and low profile. For the low profile, full body armor was concealed under shirts and grab bags were carried for ammo. High profile, the full tactical vest was put on over top to make the full combat load.

If you do get a PC or full set of armor that you attach pouches to, you do limit your potential to go covert, and you are effectively showing a high profile. You can still disguise that to an extent with a shirt or jacket inside a vehicle. If you want to be fully covert, then you are either not wearing body armor or you are wearing a slim set of level II or II stuff. But that may be appropriate.

Rather than feeling bullet proof while wearing armor, I rather take the approach that I am mitigating my chances of receiving a penetrating  gunshot wound to the torso. Be aware of this, wearing armor does not make you invincible. It may also make you a target if you are cutting about in a full battle rattle in open view.

Overall, I feel that anytime I am going to be carrying my battle rifle, for whatever reason, I want to be wearing at least a plate carrier with load out to carry my first line ammo scales plus IFAK and ancillaries. I could be wearing that in the low profile way I described, or openly in a tactical way. If I am doing something else that required more of a low profile, where I may be only carrying a handgun, then I am either not wearing  body armor or I have it concealed under a shirt or jacket.

I think the key lesson here is to not 'situate yourself' too much with your gear. Make yourself flexible to the circumstances, and make your gear so it can adapt. The most flexible approach is to have a full set of body armor (soft armor plus plates) in a soft civilian cover. You can then use it with or without the plates. Then have your tactical load in an over armor vest or chest rig/battle belt that can be worn with or without the armor. You have a system then, to work with.

Having said that, I have a fully loaded tactical plate carrier in the basement, the plates salvaged from my full set of body armor with soft cover....Oops.

Comments?

BTW, here is one of Matt Brackens books, Castigo Cay.

Or: Enemies Foregn and Domestic

Matt Brackens Website