Communications are some of the most difficult task of the light fighter, but they do not have to be complicated, here are twelve rules to help in with radio coms.
There are other ways to communicate besides radios, field phones, string, flags, vis panels, semaphore, runners, whistles, horns, drums, pigeons, etc.
We too often become fixated on the radio, but make sure you have other simple means of communication. Some of the simplest methods and devices are the best, such as whistles and vis panels. A piece of paracord tied between two fighting positions can be tugged to alert the team. These light weight reliable tools should not just be brought as a backup to more high tech methods, they should be employed as primary means when appropriate.
2. Check the on- off switch
Stupid, yeah, but the most common problem with radio coms is people turning them off, failing to monitor them, or truing the volume too low.
3. Know your system: Make a trouble shooting list.
What are the trouble shooting steps for your radio? Antenna oriented correctly, connections snug, radio grounded, batteries in place, etc.? Make a list of these, and attach it to each radio issued to your team.
4. Encrypt your transmissions.
Use your SOI, and insist that your team use it too. There is a time for plain speak, but it is the exception, not the norm. Use plain speak at times when information is time sensitive and the situation is evolving quickly enough that the enemy is unlikely to benefit from any information they overhear.
5. Be smart about un-encrypted transmissions.
Once, in a fire fight, my team leader asked me over the net, “What is your location?” this was an active fire fight and the information was too time sensitive to encrypt. I could have said, “In the ditch 50 meters south of the road”, but then anyone listening would know my exact location. Instead I told him , “I am 50 meters directly to your south”. This let him know him what he needed to know, but would be of little value to anyone listening in.
6. Assume unfriendly people are listening / monitor the enemy net.
This cuts both directions. Even if you don’t crack their code, how much information can be gleaned from transmissions? Who has directional finding capabilities? Hint: Assume the other side does, unless you know otherwise. Estimating from the number of call signs used you can determine the size and composition of enemy units. If their chatter goes quiet, they may have pulled into the patrol base for the night, or be moving as a single unit, or massing for an attack.
7. Use on- the- fly authentication.
If you think the SOI may have been compromised, is there special knowledge you have on your teammates that could be used as on- the- fly authentication? What river did we float last weekend? What is my second son’s name?
If your enemy is from a different culture, these can be broader: What kind of tree did George Washington chop down? What league are the Chicago White Socks in?
8. The best radio security is to keep the enemy busy.
If you put constant pressure on the enemy, they won’t have time to spend cracking your radio traffic.
9. Rotate SOI and frequency regularly, especially if compromised.
No explanation needed.
10. Keep transmitting, even if compromised.
The value of information that you are communicating to friendly units may outweigh the risk. Even if the enemy hears your coms, he will have to react to them. Is his reaction gap short enough to cause you problems? You will have to judge that on a case by case basis.
11. Radio checks need to be a part of every Pre Combat Inspection.
Make sure everybody has an SOI and knows the frequency and the alternate frequency(s), has spare batteries, and check to see that radios will not shift in their pouches and hot mike.
12. Learn and use the standardized report forms. SALUTE and nine line reports exist for a reason. First, they make sure you don’t forget to send important information; secondly, they make the report easier to understand. Encrypted messages can be hard to understand (as in, “moving to north”). Is that you or the enemy? The forms help keep this information clear.
What are your thoughts, see a rule here you disagree with? Or one I left out? Please share in the comments.
Even when you have a radio, there is a place for the field phones. Photo by Brent Down
I just returned from operation Winter Forge. This was a 24 hour long cold weather force on force patrolling operation. The event was hosted by S&S Training Solutions, Light Fighter Study Group participated as Op For.
While I have done a lot of cold weather camping in primitive conditions, and a lot of force on force patrolling, I wanted the opportunity to put the two together. When I saw that Tyler Jackson’s Light Fighter Study Group was partnering in this, I jumped at the chance to participate. I’ll give a quick overview, and then follow with my key takeaways.
We were issued MILES and Rifles at 0800 on Saturday, and immediately after, were vehicle- inserted to our basecamp in the far south of the area of operation. Our nine man patrol set to work establishing a listening post, setting up a two von- Reck shelters, and cutting fire wood. A five man arctic tent with a wood stove was already set up at the camp. These chores took till a little after noon, when we ate, and then sent out two three man patrols to scout the enemy defenses. By 1700, these patrols had made it back without being shot at, and were able to give us a detailed report. It appeared that the enemy had dug in an area defense on an east- to- west line in a saddle between two hills. We had good intelligence on the eastern end of the enemy line, but still knew little about their west end. After dark, we received a notional (notional is the cool guy military way of saying pretend) reinforcement to pull camp security, while we took the entire patrol to conduct a recon by fire. Each three- man fire team would patrol north on a parallel azimuth until we bumped into the enemy line. By drawing their fire, we hoped to get them to reveal their fighting positions. If things went well, we hoped that the distraction of a fire fight would allow our bravo team, who had scouted the eastern defenses earlier that day, to be able to probe deeper into their lines, and locate the enemy command post, which was our final objective.
My fire team (Charley) had not yet been out of camp, and we would be patrolling over completely unfamiliar ground in the dark, but the recon provided by Bravo earlier that day was excellent, and although they guided us in, I think we could have made it on our own based on their detailed report. Bravo had marked the objective rally point with a cleverly shielded chem light, and from there, we had only to follow their azimuth to the enemy line.
The enemy line proved to be well- situated, as we were forced to assault uphill across a broad area of short grass and sparse trees. Once the enemy opened up, they kept a regular barrage of parachute flares going that forced us to go to ground. We pressed our attack a bit harder than usual for a probing attack, in hopes that it would allow Bravo to infiltrate their lines. We were keeping up a steady fire all along the line, when the enemy surprised us by leaving their positions and assaulting down the hill into us. This sort of counterattack is inherently risky, and usually reserved for desperate times, when the defender is in danger of being overrun. The charge worked for them, pushing us off the hill, but they suffered almost as many casualties as they inflicted. We suffered four casualties in this attack, but each fire team had at least one member surviving to piece together a picture of the enemy defenses. The prospect was not good. Their line was well- situated on ground favorable to them, well tied in to notional minefields on each end. This would be a tough nut to crack. The old Napoleonic math says you need a three- to- one advantage to take a dug- in defensive position, and by that math, we would need 21 instant respawns for our nine man squad to take their ten man defense. We were to have only 8. Moreover, the enemy’s spirited defense had kept Bravo from accomplishing their infiltration, and there was still a lot we didn’t know about the depth of their lines. It was already midnight as we finalized our plans to take their position in the morning. Tyler decided to concentrate our attack on the east end of the line, simply because that was the side we knew the most about. Our morning attack would look much like the night one, only concentrated on the eastern end of the line. Alpha team was stripped down to just two men, who would provide left flank security, and prevent the enemy from swinging their west end down to flank us. Bravo would again attack the easternmost end of the line, and a reinforced Charley would support in the center. We would hit them at stand- to, perhaps the most predictable time to attack. Until then, we would have about five hours to sleep, which turned into four hours when you take account of fire watch duty.
At this point I should probably mention the weather and terrain. The Friday before the exercise began, a thick layer of sleet and freezing rain had coated the ground making footing treacherous. Then the temps had dropped, never getting above the twenties and dropping into the single digits at night. If that weren’t enough, a 10-15 mile per hour wind blew steadily the entire time. We were in northern Missouri on a bluff some two hundred feet above the Missouri river. The ground was everywhere steep, and cut with gullies and draws. During the Civil War, this had been the stomping ground of Confederate guerrillas, and for good reason; there were plenty of places to hide a small army. The cold and terrain wore on everybody. No one wanted to eat or drink, movement was difficult, and we had to move slowly, and be careful to not sweat. When sitting static in overwatch, the cold and wind quickly sapped strength and attention.
When we woke in the morning, I made my cup of coffee, and was ready to be off, but Jackson insisted that each of us eat some hot oatmeal he had made. I was glad he did; as much as we didn’t want to eat, we needed the energy. We made our movement by starlight, and were in place for the assault just as the eastern sky was turning grey. With alpha on the left and bravo on the right, Tyler gave the signal, and we began our push forward. Crouching low, we moved across the field. We reached the enemy wire, and stepped over. Still, they had not fired upon us. There was a crackle of gunfire as bravo took out the enemy listening post. Moving faster, we swept forward on their line, but there was still no resistance. We crested the hill, and found men boiling out of a GP medium tent, only to get shot down as we pushed forward. The OC declared everyone still in the tent dead as we reached the door, so we wheeled to the left, and searched the rest of their defensive line, finding no one. Amazingly, at stand- to, they had only one LPOP manned, and the entire rest of the patrol was in the tent, trying to stay warm.
In the end, we took only three casualties in the attack that we had expected to be so difficult.
Key takeaways: In the cold you have to fight not only the enemy, but the weather; your operational tempo has to slow down, you spend more time just staying alive.
You need more stuff in the cold: more cloths, more food, more shelter, pioneering tools to cut fire wood. Everything is more work, and requires more people to do the same job. Troop care is always important, but becomes doubly so in the cold. Warm food and beverages are a must. Most of our calories were still provided by cold rations, but occasional cups of broth and tea did a lot to keep us warm and hydrated. Also, having the heated tent allowed us to regularly pull guys in from the cold to warm up and rest. In the end, this is what won the fight for us. By the morning, the other team was so worn down by the cold and wind, that they simply did not have enough men to conduct stand- to. We may have not been exactly comfortable, but we still had 100% of our team ready to fight. As Cole, one of the event organizers out it, we didn’t win that battle, the weather did.
Experience and environmental factors matter. Kyle, the other team leader, is an Iraq veteran, and excellent leader. His guys put up and excellent defense against us, but not against the weather. Last spring, when I was in the field with Kyle, I was impressed by his ability to keep his guys in fighting trim in spite of the hot humid weather, but the cold brings different considerations. Tyler’s experience patrolling on the Estonian / Russian border in winter proved invaluable.
Tips: a piece of sleeping pad cut down just big enough to sit on makes time pulling security a lot more comfortable. Sitting on frozen ground saps body heat.
Have both caffeinated and un-caffeinated warm beverages. Sometimes you need to wake up, sometimes you need to sleep, but all the time you need to be warm.
Eat and drink even if you don’t feel like it. You will burn a lot of calories and expire a lot of moisture in the cold. Oddly, nobody wants to eat when they feel this cold.
The little chemical hand warmers stuffed in your socks at night really help to keep your feet warm.
If you ever have the chance to participate in a cold weather exercise, I recommend you give it a try. Cold brings new challenges and opportunities. I know that I learned a lot.
P.S. After first publishing this I got this comment From Kyle, I was unaware that he had also served a tour in Afghanistan, he had this to say about the differences in the cold weather operations he did there and what we did last weekend: “I definitely learned a lot about keeping troops taken care of in the cold. Unfortunately even as cold as Afghanistan got, it was a different game than this weekend, as everyone had the optimum cold weather gear and a heated MRAP within 500m at all time. Doing the traditional infantry thing is much more difficult.”
I really appreciate the feedback that came from the many participants who read this post, in the end this is only my perspective based on what I saw, there were eighteen other participants and six people on staff making this happen, each has a unique and valuable perspective. The insight they share increases the learning value for all of us.
How do you organize your team for maximum effectiveness?
“During the whole affair, the rebels attacked us in a very scattered, irregular manner, but with perseverance and resolution, nor did they ever dare to form into any regular body. Indeed they knew too well what was proper, to do so. Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob, will find himself very much mistaken. They have men among them who know very well what they are about.” -Lord Hugh Percy, after the battle of Lexington.
Since time immemorial, men have understood that a team of men will defeat a mob, even if the mob is comprised of men who are superb individual fighters. This is largely why the Romans defeated Spartacus’s revolt, and the colonial powers defeated so many nineteenth- century tribesmen. The question I am interested in, in this post, is not whether a team is superior, but how should it be composed, and in what number.
With a two- element team, you have fire and maneuver capability. One element can fire while the other moves, bounding either forward (for the attack), backward (to break contact), or laterally (to flank).
The smallest possible number of people you can have, and still be called a team, is of course two. For that reason, the buddy team is foundational for soldiers and cops everywhere. The weakness of the buddy team is that it has severely limited fire power, with only one person to lay down suppressive fire, while the second moves. One man can only easily cover a sector about 45 degrees wide. A dispersed enemy will require more people to suppress. Moreover, the buddy team is fragile, being only one casualty or weapon malfunction away from a single warrior.
Far greater fire power and survivability is found in the four man fire team. Not only does the fire team lay down twice as many rounds and suppress twice as wide an area, but it has the man power to continue function as a team, even if as many of two of its members are out of action. Then, having cleared the area of enemy fighters, one team member can administer aid to the injured, while the other provides a security over- watch. Even the old Boy Scout manual recommended a minimum of four boys for a backwoods hike. In case of injury, one could stay with the injured party, while two went for help.
A great deal can be accomplished with a four man fire team, but still, you are limited. It just doesn’t have much mass, especially when divided into two maneuver elements. The next step up in organization would be the eight man squad, which is commonly used by the U.S. Army. In this configuration, with each fire team acting as an independent maneuver element, we start to see how truly functional a small unit can be. It is not just a matter of eight men being twice as good as four. At these numbers, we start to reach a critical mass, where the whole begins to be much more than the sum of its parts.
Even so, with only two elements, you are limited to simple bounding maneuvers. Most battle drills, whether raid, ambush, or deliberate attack, call for three elements: Assault, Support and Security. In area defense, this breaks down into line, reserve and screening activities; still three elements. Even the ancient Roman army was divided into three elements; Hastati, Principes, Triarii.
If our basic unit is the fire team, this gives us a twelve man squad, as is commonly deployed by the USMC.
To say twelve is better than eight, is not a simple matter of “more is better”. A twelve man squad fills every task at a minimum level, and achieves a synergy that is difficult with smaller numbers.
All well and good, but what if you don’t have twelve men? Obviously, you will have to make adjustments. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the team you have, not the team you want. First, consider your mission. Are you tasked with reconnaissance? If your goal is not to make hard contact with the enemy (in other words see him without him seeing you), you may be better served by a smaller team. Smaller teams are easier to hide, and, as we pointed out earlier, two elements are all that is necessary to break contact if things go sour. One of the classic examples of a tiny recon team would be a scout sniper team, consisting of a sniper and his spotter. (While sniper teams are famous for taking out high value targets on the battle field, their value for scouting and reconnaissance, is often more important.)
Another approach is to intentionally neglect one of the elements. For instance, if you are shorthanded, you may decide to task all of your meager resources to assault and support, and none to security. While this is inherently dangerous, and there are many examples of commanders doing this to their peril, there are cases in history where commanders have used heavy violence of action and a rapid operational tempo in lieu of flank security. In other words, they have attacked with enough vigor that the enemy is constantly on his heels, and too unbalanced to launch a counterattack.
Finally, you can scale your mission down. Imagine this tiny, six man ambush: One buddy team is the attack, one is support, and the third is split into two lonely, one man flank security elements. With teams this small, every man must be utterly dependable. There is no one to wake up a drowsy sentinel, and it is difficult to mix in new troops with less experience, when the numbers are this small, without seriously diluting your fighting ability.
Lastly, you can alter your tactics. Outnumbered forces have historically employed far ambushes, baited ambushes, reverse slope defenses, booby traps, and sabotage.
If you are a man who knows very much what you are about you can transform your irregular mob into an effective team.
A few months ago, I posted my principals of lightfighting. Today, I post my suggested lightfighter’s reading list.
Light Infantry Tactics by Christopher Larsen. This work is, in my opinion, the entry point to lightfighter understanding. Critics have pointed out that there is nothing in this book that you wouldn’t learn from reading the Ranger Handbook. While this may be technically true, this book presents the basics of light fighting in an extremely understandable way, with lots of quality photos and illustrations. Most of all, Larsen is a storyteller. He includes a valuable lessons learned section for each chapter, with anecdotes that drive home the importance of each technique taught, in an entertaining and memorable way. Larsen understands, correctly, that the NCO is the linchpin of successful operations, and devotes a significant portion of his book to troop leading procedures. Wise warriors will take note.
For a bigger picture of light infantry, read A Historical Perspective On Light Infantry by Major Scott R. McMichael. This may be the single most informative book in this list. I think all of the aspects of leadership, culture, training, tactics, and strategy that make up the lightfighting concept, are covered to some degree in this volume. I reviewed this book individually in a previous post.
The Defense of Duffer’s Drift, by E. D. Swinton, is a classic British work on all things defensive. This is not your typical military manual; it’s sort of an Aesop’s fable of defensive tactics. Filled with references to poetry and literature, both English and classical, I found it a joy to read. This book grew out of the Boer War, where the Brits were facing some of the best maneuver war practitioners to ever take the field. The Brits had to learn fast to defeat these Dutch farmers, who were experts at marksmanship, horsemanship, and field craft. It is noteworthy that the British began to call their elite units, “commando” units; “commando” was what the Boers called their regular line units.
4th Generation Warfare Handbook, by Gregory A. Thiele and William S. Lind. If you want to understand what lightfighting looks like on today’s battlefield, and why we need light infantry, this book is a good place to start. I think the 4 generations of war paradigm is flawed, but it does present a useful construct for understanding military theory.
The Last Hundred yards, H. J. Pool. This is the work that brought small unit tactics back to the front burner. This book is a back- to- basics approach to patrolling, communications, field craft, and reading terrain. Definitely a must- read.
Scouting and Patrolling, by Rex Applegate. This is similar to Pool’s work, but with an emphasis on reconnaissance. Written during the Second World War, this book remains fresh today.
War, by Sebastian Junger. This book follows a platoon of 173rd airborne soldiers through a deployment in the Korengal Mountains of Afghanistan. This paints a good picture of how a small unit culture works, and how group cohesion creates combat effectiveness.
Gates of Fire, Steven Pressfield’s historical fiction of the battle of Thermopylae. This work explores what it means to be a warrior and member of a polis as contrast to living in a Hobbesian state of nature, or a subject in an empire of slaves. This book is usually held up as a more historically accurate depiction of Spartan society, than those that have been recently played in film. I would have to disagree, to a large degree, about the historical accuracy. Sparta has come to symbolize the pure warrior society in the western mind, a sort of nation of Siegfrieds. Pressfield’s book is no exception. It tells us more about what he thinks a warrior society looks like, than what Sparta actually was. Nevertheless, Pressfield is too honest a man to present his vision as a utopia. His Sparta is rife with cruelty, abuse, and injustice. He posits that this society, flawed as it is, is still better that living in the anarchy of nature, or the tyranny of empire.
Pressfield gets a second title on this list, with The Lion’s Gate, his history of the Six Day War. In recent times, the Israelis’ warfighting doctrine has been uninspired at best, but in 1967 they were perhaps the best third- generation/maneuver warfare military in the world. Not surprisingly, when you consider that their officer corps at the time had been trained by Orde Windgate, who’s work in Burma is featured in A Historical Perspective On Light Infantry.
StarShip Troopers, by Robert H. Heinlein, is last but not least on this list. This classic sci-fi novel explores the obligations of a soldier to society, and society’s obligation to its fighting men. Written in 1959, when the best and brightest military minds believed that the future of war would be all missiles controlled from blast-proof bunkers, Heinlein was making the argument that even if technology advanced to the point that intergalactic travel became commonplace, we would still need boots on the ground. It is men who fight wars, not weapons. My favorite quote: “There are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous men.”
What are your thoughts? Something I left out? Something in the list that does not belong? Please comment; I would like to hear.
A wise man once told me, “If you want to be a leader, you have to be a reader”.
I have found this good advice. Here are some of the books I have been reading lately, not necessarily in any type of order.
No Second Place Winner, by Bill Jordan, published in 1965. This is a classic that everyone should read. You will find lots of pictures of Jordan shooting one- handed, from the hip, pipe in his mouth, and cowboy hat firmly on his head. Shooting styles surely have changed, but there is no getting around the fact that this man was an expert with a handgun, who had shot his way out of more than a couple of scrapes in his day. Interestingly, for all the emphasis on shot- from- the- hip fast draw, Jordan recommends bringing the gun up into the line of sight at distances of seven yards and greater (as Applegate did with his point shooting method), and actually using the sights beyond 15 yards. This book has lots of quotable passages, but my favorite is: “For ninety percent of your practice, draw from the holster, and fire one shot. It’s that first shot that’s important, and it is the one that is most difficult to place accurately.” True words.
The Complete Book of Combat Handgunning, By Chuck Taylor, published in 1982. This really is a comprehensive book, covering gear and ammunition selection, weapon maintenance tactics, and strategy. Taylor is one of the influential shooters from the early days of the Modern Technique of the pistol, and despite what a lot of current trainers like to say about the gun fighting in the post 9-11 world, not much has changed from the techniques Taylor demonstrates in this book (with excellent photographs). The same cannot be said for handguns, ammunition, and holsters, all of which have improved considerably from the selection that was available in 1982. The best part of this book, to me, is the section of recommended dryfire and live fire drills. He recommends 30-45 minutes of dry practice, daily. He considers this a basic level, for more advanced practice, he adds an additional 20 minutes daily. The live fire drills are challenging, and I would urge anyone who is serious about the pistol to find this book, and try the drills. Chuck Taylor went on to develop the Hand Gun combat master certification which is near legendary in its difficulty.
If Jordan and Taylor were interested in mastering the pistol, Karl Rehn and Jon Daub are at the opposite spectrum, with their newly published book, Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training. Rehn and Daub recognize that far from spending 45 minutes a day dry practicing with their hand guns, or practicing fast draw by shooting up thousands of specially hand loaded, paraffin wax projectiles, (as Jordan recommends) most civilian pistol carriers will, at best, show up for one, four- hour class per year. Rehn and Daub try to establish what a minimum standard of skill should be, and how to get a student to that level, in the time that they are willing to spend. This book is a trove of good information, filled with useful statistics. They even make an attempt to categorize the difficulty level of various common drills. As much as I like this book, it could have used a better editor. The information is a bit disorganized, and they have an annoying habit of referencing a drill, but not describing it, advising readers to “look it up on the internet”. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have had to buy the book, not to mention that many drills are not standardized, and it is difficult to know if the version of, say, the “Casino drill”, which you can find online, is the same one that the authors are referencing. If you do any handgun instruction at all, you should read this book; if you don’t teach, you probably won’t find it interesting.
I like to read a lot of first person accounts by regular G.I.s, and Jumping From Helicopters, by John Stillman, is just one of the most recent I have found. It contains a good, firsthand account of a paratrooper in Vietnam.
The Farnam Method of Defensive Handgunning, By John S. Farnam, published in 2000, is yet another gun-fighting manual, but it contains very little information that is redundant to the similar books I have already mentioned here. Aside from excellent coverage of gun handling and self- defense, this book covers: dealing with law enforcement, confronting criminals, use- of- force considerations, and even touches on first aid. The best part, for me, was Farnam’s extensive coverage of the traditional, double action pistol; a system that doesn’t get much coverage from serious gun writers, in spite of its popularity with police and militaries around the world. Farnam loves charts, comparing the various attributes of different pistols and ammunitions, and I found the chart comparing the workings of various traditional, double action pistols to be quite enlightening. Many of these systems are very different from each other, in spite of being classified as the same.
If you are interested in a deeper dive into military history, Martin Van Creveld’s The Culture of War, and his History of Strategy: From Sun Tzu to William S. Lind, are a pair of books that I have recently read. Van Creveld writes succinctly, with an easy- to- read style, which, layman though I am, I found easy to understand. His books are filled with a dry humor (at one point, he refers to T. E. Lawrence as “a typical British Eccentric”). I have only recently discovered this author, and plan to read more of his works in the future.
Another recent discovery, for me, is Tony Hillerman, who wrote detective fiction set on the Navajo reservation, and starring Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. The mysteries are clever, the characters interesting, and Hillerman weaves in a lot of detail about Navajo culture, history, and religion that I find fascinating. I’ve read four of these, and immensely enjoyed every one, although Sacred Clowns is my favorite so far.
I know a lot of people who have snobbish disdain for fiction, usually characterizing their thoughts by saying, with words or demeanor, “I only have time to read serious books.” This attitude is as sophomoric as it is stupid. Oftentimes, more truth can be conveyed in a good work of fiction, than in an entire library of technical manuals, so don’t be ashamed to mix a little quality fiction into your reading.
We have more written material available to us than at any previous time in history, anything you want to know, someone has written a book about it. While there is no substitute for hands on experience, we can gain a huge leg up by reading about the work of those who have gone before us.
One of my goals for the year is to gain a basic proficiency with some weapon platforms that are unfamiliar to me, one of these being the traditional, double action pistol. These are the pistols that were so popular in the nineties, where the first pull of the trigger cocks the hammer and fires the round, much like a double action revolver. To fire subsequent rounds, the hammer was cocked by the slide, making the trigger pull closer to the short, light pull of a single action pistol.
Popular examples are the Smith and Wesson 5900 series pistols, which were adopted by many law enforcement agencies before the Glock became dominant in that market, and, of course, the M9, which was the official pistol of our armed services from 1990 until 2017.
A couple of years ago, I found a police trade- in Beretta 92, which is the civilian version of the M9. I picked it up because it was a good deal, and because anything John McClane carried had to be good, right? However, since buying it, I haven’t put more than a box of ammo through it. I decided it was high time to change that.
anything John mcclane carried has to be good, right?
The traditional double actions are famously difficult to master. Jeff Cooper once compared shooting a double action it to swimming the English Channel without flippers; it is possible, but not easy. I think the colonel was speaking in hyperbole when he said that, but it underscores the truth: this is not an easy system to learn.
My goal with this project is not to achieve mastery, which would take more time than I am willing to invest at this time. My goal is to gain a basic level of skill with a system that is common, if not widely used anymore.
The chief difficulty with the TDA, is that you will have to learn two different trigger pulls. To work on this, I used a version of the popular dot torture test made for this platform.
I found this to be a good drill for learning the trigger of the TDA. After running it a couple of times, I felt ready to move on to some timed drills.
I decided to run the Hojutsu Short course. Based on the Alaska State Troopers Pistol Qualification, it is a well- rounded course covering a variety of practical skills, but using time allowances generous enough not to dissuade a beginner.
I ran this twice, and was able to score 90% on the second attempt. Col. Cooper was right; this is a difficult gun to shoot in many ways, the trigger inconsistency being the greatest hangup. That being said, the pistol was extremely accurate. Recoil was as mild as I have ever experienced in a pistol, and I did not experience a single malfunction, even using some hand loads that my glock refused to eat.
One problem I had concerned the safety mechanism, so I did some research, and wrote to Jeff Hall explaining my difficulty.
“I have been running the safety as one would a 1911, wherein the safety comes off between 5 and 6 of the draw stroke, and goes back on when the gun comes to the guard position.
I don’t see a lot of reference material on the double actions, a bit surprising considering that they were so popular for awhile, but one reference that does deal with them is Farnam’s Defensive Handgunning. In it, he recommends the pistol be carried de-cocked, but with the safety off, something similar to a double action revolver. The safety need not be taken off on the draw, and after shooting, the safety is switched on to de-cock the pistol, and then taken back off to holster and have at the ready for the next draw.
What manual of arms do you recommend for this type of weapon? Is there a reference that you recommend for this platform?”
He replied: “I carried a S&W double/single action, the 4006, for ten years with the Troopers. S&W does not call it a safety, they call it a de-cocker.
We did it just like John says. The gun is carried with a round in the chamber, de-cocked, with the de-cocker in the up (off safety) position. So, draw, point in, shoot as needed, decock as you come to guard, tac load and holster. It’s the same thing as a double-action revolver.”
When I shoot this gun next, I will try this method. It would have saved me a couple of overtime penalties, when I forgot to lift the decocker, and dropped the hammer on the safety bar.
If you are looking to gain some basic familiarity with a TDA pistol, give the course of fire I describe here a try. You can shoot the Dot Torture and the Short course twice, and still only burn 156 rounds.
For more on the TDA pistol, I highly recommend John Farnam’s book, “Defensive Handgunning”.
Accuracy was good with the Beretta, but my unfamiliarity with the trigger cost a couple of over- times.
I started teaching my children baseball this summer, just the basics: How to throw and catch a ball. It got me thinking about the process of learning the basics.
“This is only basic rifle marksmanship that you are teaching!” The student said it with something between derision and accusation.
“Yep, that is exactly what we are teaching,” I replied.
“I’m a sergeant, I already know this stuff.”
I shrugged, and let it pass. He was grouping three inches at twenty five yards, with the aid of a bipod.
I sometimes start classes by stating: “We will be working a lot on basics today.” I can accurately predict which students will do well, and which ones will perform poorly, based on their response. The ones that say, “Great, I need basics”, excel. The ones who look disappointed, or bored, do not. Ironically, it is those students who embrace the basics, who are ready to move on to more advanced work more quickly.
The basics aren’t cool. They don’t look good on Instagram, and basics won’t get you followers on YouTube. Basics are hard, tedious work. I have heard it said that ten thousand repetitions of a single movement are required to achieve mastery. How long does it take to amass ten thousand trigger presses? Or ten thousand draw strokes?
Everything fancy is just basics, faster, or from some inconvenient position. To paraphrase one instructor I heard, “All you got to do is line up the sights, then don’t screw it up pulling the trigger.”
Yep, basics.
Next time you tune in the ball game, look at the highlights reel. You will see those amazing triple plays, the slide into home plate, the fielder leaping to catch that would be home run, before it sails over the fence. Then watch what the players do when they take the field. Even though they are professionals, the very best players alive, they practice the basics, tossing the ball to each other, warming up for the inning.
They all started out as kids playing catch with their dad in the back yard, and even now, as pros making obscene amounts of money, they are still learning to catch and throw. That’s why they are the best at what they do.
Small unit patrolling is more art than science. photo by Davis Winborne
It would be presumptuous to call these “rules”, or in any way imply that this list is definitive.
I am certainly not an expert on small unit tactics, or light infantry patrolling, but these are a few things I have learned in my time patrolling; mostly with One Shepherd, but also with S&S, and a couple of others. It should be noted that these stem from the One Shepherd “Lightfighter” concept which is a unique doctrine that may not apply to the mission or structure of other units/organizations. Most of these principals will represent mistakes I made myself, and the lessons learned thereby.
The team that patrols the most, wins. I can say, without qualification, that in every FTX I have participated in, the most successful team is the one that patrols more. Patrolling is your eyes and ears on the battlefield. The more you patrol the more you disrupt and restrict the enemy’s freedom of movement. When the entire team is pulled into a static, defensive posture, your awareness reaches no further than your field of view. You have then ceded most of the battlespace to the enemy.
Patrols need not be large to gather useful information. A two- or three- man patrol can often gather as much or more information as a squad- sized patrol, and free up manpower for other tasks.
You never have people, time, and supplies in the quantity that you would like. You will have to prioritize tasks, and often must choose not to do something that is normally deemed essential. When you guess correctly, you will look like a genius, but when you guess incorrectly, you will look like a fool.
Begin working to build team cohesion as soon as possible. As soon as you know who your team will be, have them begin doing things together. Have fire teams eat together, practice PT together, and do weapon maintenance together. The importance of the task itself is not as great as the bond it begins to form. The importance of this is difficult to quantify, but incredibly vital.
Rehearse everything, even if the rehearsal has to be done with an improvised terrain model, with acorns representing friendly, and pinecones unfriendly operatives. Rehearsing even the simplest of operations will save you heartache later on.
Written orders can save confusion, and emphasize the seriousness of a task. For example, tasks like watch rotations while the team sleeps, are often bungled because they happen in the dark, when people are exhausted. A written watch rotation that each person looks at while it is still light, can help to keep an alert security posture.
Change your batteries before it gets dark. Enough said.
The most successful teams are often led by a fox and a terrier, two personality types. The fox, sly, cautious, sneaky, and risk averse; and the terrier, bold, aggressive, and vicious, often work well together. One is better at strategy, and the other is better at kinetic operations. This combination works particularly well if the fox is patrol leader, and the terrier is his second.
Communicating with your team is more important than the risk of communications being intercepted by the enemy. We do not want to give information away to the enemy, but most communication lapses stem from excessive fear of communication intercept. The importance of your team knowing where you, are and what you are doing, usually outweighs the danger of the enemy knowing where you are, and what you are doing,.
Communication is more than radio. Have more tools in you communications repertoire. Do not neglect field phones, semaphores, animal calls, flares, light flashes, and plain old shouting, just to name a few.
Only 18% of pistol shooters use a shot timer when they train, according to a survey by Concealedcarry .com. I believe that number may, in fact, be artificially high; very few of the gun owners I know have a shot timer. With that in mind, I thought I would publish a few drills which can be run without at shot timer. None of these are my own invention, and where I can recall, I will attribute the drill to the person who taught me.
One Hole Drill
At any distance (start at three yards), put five shots into one hole. Resist the urge to fire a sixth or seventh shot to make up for a miss. If you need to run a second time, re holster, take a breath, and then start over. This drill is about mental focus, sight picture, and trigger control. This is, perhaps, the most important drill you can practice, working on the fundamentals. I learned this from Jeff Hall, founder of Hojutsu. I run this drill two or three times, every time I shoot. No matter what I do, I like to end the session with a one hole drill. It tends to bring me back to the fundamentals.
A very respectable one hole drill shot from 5 yards
Okey Dokey Drill
This is like the one hole drill, featuring five shots into one hole, with the single difference that you hold the pistol only with the thumb and middle finger of one hand. Imagine holding your hand in the Okey-Dokey sign. The purpose is to isolate the trigger from the grip. If I have a student who has bad trigger control, an error he is trying to overcome by maintaining a death grip on his weapon, this will cure the problem. Likewise, if his trigger press is good, but his grip is torquing the weapon, this will also cure the problem. I was taught this technique by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who is most well known as an author, but is also an excellent pistol instructor.
Clover Leaf
This is yet another adaptation of the one hole drill (if you notice, I really like the one hole drill). For this drill, fire three shots. The first shot is fired with your normal, two handed grip. The second shot uses strong hand only, and the third, weak hand only. You want all three to touch; i.e., create a clover leaf pattern. This drill is created to work on one hand trigger control. I learned about this from Greg Ellifritz’s excellent blog, Active Response Training. If you aren’t reading his blog, you are wrong.
The And Drill
Any target will do for this drill, but try a ten inch plate at ten yards to start. Point in on your target, and start counting: “One thousand and one, one thousand and two…” Each time you get to the end of a number, press the trigger. When you can keep five shots in a row on target, drop the thousands and just count, “One, and two, and…” with the trigger press at the end of each “D” in “and”. Eventually, drop the numbers altogether, just using the word “and”. This is about tempo, coordinating sight picture with breath, and controlling recoil. I learned this drill from D.C. Reed, of TAGtrainingllc.com
Three Steps Froward Three Steps Back
Using an IDPA sized or similar target, start at ten yards, and shoot five shots. If they are all on target, move three steps back. If you miss one, take three steps forward. Eventually, you will settle into your maximum effective range for the size target you are using. The goal is to increase your maximum effective range. If you use a steel target for this be sure that you do not get too close to the target (most manufactures recommend no closer than ten yards).
A shot timer is a great tool, and well worth the investment. There are many skills that can only be developed with the use of a timer, but there are others that can only be mastered with slow, deliberate fire. I use a shot timer every time I go to the range, but I still utilize a number of untimed drills, especially if I find myself becoming sloppy with my fundamentals.
Competition teaches problem solving under pressure
Competitive shooting isn’t real, it’s only a game. Combat sports are just that: sports. In a real fight, it will be different. In a real fight there won’t be boundaries, there won’t be safety officers, judges, and referees. It won’t be Marquis of Queensbury rules. Conditions will be austere. The reliability of your equipment will matter more than its accuracy, power, or round capacity. The light will be too bright, or too dim. The ground will be uneven, muddy, dusty, or hard. Most importantly, your opponent will most likely be in the prime of his youth. He will most likely be stronger and faster than you. He probably had a harder childhood than you. He will likely be under the influence of multiple drugs that will alter his reasoning, motivations, and pain tolerance to a state that you can only imagine. Even if he is not tripping, he has probably experienced enough physical pain in his short life so as to be unimpressed by anything you can dish out. He may be unwise, but he will be cunning, and he wants to win. You have something he wants, and he will marshal all of the above- mentioned advantages to take it from you. While he is at it, he will think up a couple of new angles that I haven’t thought of, and neither have you. In order to prevail, you will have to solve problems on the fly, under pressure, and fast.
How do we train for this fight, when it is so different from a competition?
We compete.
Is that a contradiction? Yes and no.
What are the ways that we train? All training can be grouped into one of three broad categories: Drill, Storytelling, and Play.
Drill is what you do when you practice your draw stroke, when a boxer punches a bag, and when the formation of Greek hoplites learned to march and maneuver around the battle field without breaking ranks. It is, I suspect, the newest form of training; and aside from target practice with projectile weapons, probably wasn’t practiced until men started fighting in close order formations. By utilizing drill, we learn to execute that prefect punch, and that precise shot. We make the correct form a part of our nature, so that it can be executed under pressure, without thinking. Drill does not teach us how to solve a problem, it simply frees up our mind from the difficulty of the basics, so that we can solve the problem.
Drill is how we practice a particular skill until it can executed without thought, freeing up the mind for other problems
Story telling is much older, and uniquely human. Around the campfire, old men transmit the lessons from their battles to the young braves. You carry around the experience of others, and take them into battle with you. Story telling gives us the framework for solving problems. If your problem looks like the one described in the story, try a solution that looks like the one from the story.
Consider the story of Mike Rousseau. Rousseau was fighting in Mozambique when he found himself facing an adversary armed with an AK47. Rousseau drew his pistol, and shot his adversary twice in the chest. When his enemy did not go down, he took a more careful aim, and shot him in the head. He later had opportunity to tell the story of this battle to Jeff Cooper, who related it to many more people. Literally thousands of people have learned from this story, and a great many have used it to their own benefit in combat.
Storytelling is how we learn what skills to apply to a given problem.
Finally, we learn by playing games. Even animals play games. Why does the cat give a half- dead mouse to her kittens to play with? Why do those same kittens chase a ball of yarn, or each other, or even their own tails? So that they will learn to hunt. Our oldest sports were training for war. Track and field, wrestling, and boxing are good examples. The Nordic sports, especially biathlon, grew up in nations where men fought on skis. American football, one of the newest sports, is a scale model of Napoleonic warfare. Hunting and fishing have continued as sports for thousands of years after they were no longer necessary for food. It is not a coincidence that hunting is always practiced by the societies’ warrior class, be they the impoverished farmers of Appalachia, or the landed gentry of Britain.
Games, sports, and competitions give us practice solving problems on the fly, and under pressure, against able- bodied, living, thinking opponents. Whether we are calling a coyote into rifle range, stalking a trout, wrestling on the mat, sparring in the ring, or estimating the wind value in a high power match, we are practicing our problems solving skills, and pitting our brains and bodies against the other brains and bodies in the contest.
How does this square with everything I said in the opening paragraph about games, sports, and competitions not being “real”? Of course they aren’t real, but that does not mean that they are without value. In order to realize the full value of a game, we need to remember that is just a game. The game is a problems solving exercise that will differ in multiple key ways from the real fight. We identify those key differences through storytelling. We execute the solutions through drill.
I started teaching my children baseball this summer, just the basics: How to throw and catch a ball. It got me thinking about the process of learning the basics.
american fyrd 