For example, imagine that you are on post at your community observation post. You know you have a patrol out there, but you also know that there are potential hostiles in the area. You’ve been on post for hours and through the spotting scope, you see four people moving slowly and carefully towards your perimeter. They’re wearing Multi-Cam uniforms, just like everyone in your group. Sadly, so is everyone else these days, including the bad guys.
-WiscoDave
If it gets this bad, we're all fucked.....
ReplyDeleteAnd if it doesn’t get this bad, we’re still all fucked… Eod1sg Ret
ReplyDeleteIf it gets this bad all the rules go out the window.
ReplyDeleteAny patrol leaving my AO knows where home is. The Flint hills of Kansas are not as confusing as the jungles of Vietnam or the rock piles of shitholeistan. We will have a visible signal we can display as we near the first markers. After that it will be follow a scheduled route up to the LP/OP.
ReplyDeleteFor night patrol it will be a green light shielded in a pipe to signal.
Nuff said.
We never entered any area in the night. We pulled an LP listening Post or Ambush every night. You left your rear area just after dark and went to your site and hunkered down. Every day ya pulled a patrol. On patrol you looked for a good spot for your night LP or Ambush. In the afternoon you returned to your squad or company and showed the Lt where you would be in the night. Lt's radio sent the coordinates to the rear. You hoped some asshole in the rear hadn't thrown a dart at a map and decided the spot for you. I've sat all night long in the middle of a flooded rice paddy because of this stupidity. You damn well better be where you said you would be or where ever the idiots sent you because there were others out on LP's or Ambushes that you knew nothing about. I was in India Co. and Lima Co. might be operating a click away. You had no idea where those guys were in the night. Now I heard of and knew of fire teams pulling Phantoms. A couple examples of Phantoms are: your site is say a half a click from a structure of some kind you go there instead of the site. A deserted hooch or pagoda. As a team Leader and later Squad Leader I never did this. If ya aint where you are supposed to be friendly fire kills ya just as dead as enemy fire. Every few weeks or so we would go to the company rear for two or three days of rest. The bastards still made us pull patrols, LP's and Ambushes or we were assigned to the company bunker at night. Had to give the pogues a much deserved nights sleep in their hooches with mattress. I also figured the brass who had never been in the bush were probably terrified and preferred a seasoned combat soldier guarding them as opposed to a pogue. Still it pissed us off and to this day it still pisses me off. When we came into the rear we were exhausted, filthy, probably stank bad and needed some down time. At least we got cold showers, hot chow and issued new clothes. Also drink a few beers, catch a buzz and listen to some jams. As a luxury, we usually had cots in a big tent but there were times it was just a plywood or dirt floor. Regardless of the floor, four walls and a roof overhead made it the Hilton. Shittin in high cotton I tell ya. I once heard of a Fire Team pulling a Phantom in a rear area. The fire Team was to pull a night maneuver but made a deal with the guys on the company bunker. They would go out and at a given time come through the wire to said bunker. They would then split up the watch time and get some much needed sleep. Well, the Fire Team came through the wire but to the wrong bunker. As you can imagine that did not work out too well. I'm rambling man. I don't mean to offend pogues. You were there I respect that but my Nam was a lot different they yours. Thanks for serving. It was the brass the divided us.
ReplyDeleteinteresting stuff ! I bookmarked his page.
ReplyDeleteI'll be blunt, this is where encrypted radios come into play; they are essential. Unless the unit was killed and their radios captured, only your own people will be on that channel/freq/encryption.
ReplyDeleteRadios depend on having at least a basic solar panel to charge them on, and depend on post having spare batteries. I lost count of the number of times post in Afghanistan had dead radios because they forgot their extra battery. That, or it was a weak battery and died on them.
In the absence of radio... Unconventional identification markers are handy. The article talks about "patch of the day" but it may be broken down to a simpler "color of the day"; although patterns would help with increasing selection / decreasing the potential for the enemy to guess the color of the day.
A pack of handkerchiefs are extremely lightweight and patrols can radio up before approach. Command can tell them to wear color 1 - 10 before coming within sight or it can be assigned per the day. The handkerchiefs can also double for bandages or packing material if needed. I doubt anyone will care if it's sterile when they are bleeding out.
Uniform alterations, like one sleeve partially rolled, or one boot bloused, may also serve, but these depend on attention to detail and good optics.
Simply wearing your identification patch on the left arm, right arm, left chest, right, sideways, etc, may be enough. There are plenty of methods, you gota use what you got.
-arc