Apache Tactics

APACHE TACTICS

 

You can never read enough about Guerilla Warfare tactics and history.

I would urge everybody to invest in a flash drive where you can keep reference materials like this handy.

I would also urge all my readers to go over to Active Response Training and sign up for email alerts.

Every month they post Free Amazon Kindle e-books. The genre’s are mixed but mainly involve Prepping, Tactical Shooting, Self-Defense Strategies, Crime Awareness, Self-Help, Crime Fiction, Post-Apoc Fiction, etc. It’s a really easy way to build you a nice library of reading material for FREE. I have been doing it for a few years now and have over 1,000 titles in my digital library. (Heads Up: These books only remain FREE for a very limited time, so the best time to download them is the day you get the notification email!)

Stay Alert, Armed and Dangerous!

A Challenge of Logistics: Ammo in Guerrilla Groups

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Almost as predictable as the rising of the sun is the issues of keeping a guerrilla group supplied. In every historical account I’ve read and personal encounters training and patrolling with the Kurdish Peshmerga and even the Afghan Border Police (which is little more than a government sanctioned militia) the number one issue boils down to logistics. In all cases, its not even having a combat load of ammunition for a patrol- they barely have ammo to even train, much less sustain a firefight for long. Such is life. Today many are finding themselves in a similar situation. Ammo, for the most part, is short and expensive where you can find it. The guns don’t seem to be the problem- 5.56 and 9mm are the new 22 Long from the era of Obama. Taking that into account, how many here in the States actually have a realistic picture…

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Fire and Maneuver in Urban AO’s

From the Archives, 2015.

In a recent Article, Law Enforcement told how they found a very large collection of ‘tactical writings’ in the home of Dallas Police Shooter and Army Panty Bandit Micah Johnson.

According to Police, the tactic of “Fire and Maneuver” or “Shoot and Move” was the tactic seen most often in Johnson’s “voluminous” notes.

Since Johnson’s MOS and military career was devoid of any real Combat training or experience while in Afghanistan, Where Johnson actually learned these tactics is up for debate. Most Combat and Firearm Tactics Instructors and Combat Veterans agree  that Johnson was taught these tactics by somebody who had participated in Mil-Sim (Airsoft).

My personal opinion is that Johnson at some time or another, post-Army career, received training by Black Power militants within the BLM community, who are most likely, according to Robert Spencer from Jihad Watch connected with HAMAS through the help of CAIR, which is widely known to financially support Terrorism.

The student of history and Guerilla Warfare does not have to look very far back to see the deadly nexus between 1960’s  Black Power militant movements, like the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan, so the BLM/HAMAS-CAIR connection is by no means a conspiratorial stretch.

Below is a vid from a Black Panther rally in 2015 in Austin, Texas where armed black militants called for the death of “pigs” (Police Officers) with the ominous chant “Oink, Oink Bang, Bang.”

When one starts piecing together the Dallas attack, the “Shoot and Move” tactic used by Johnson was one of the main reasons police thought there were facing MULTIPLE shooters, instead of just one shooter, as the fire was coming from many different positions. Gunfire echo in an urban setting combined with the chaos and high stress most likely attributed to this confusion.

This is a very important lesson to learn, both in the study of Guerilla and Counter-Insurgency Warfare (COIN). The guerilla must use any and all “force multipliers” to his advantage to try to overwhelm the enemy (both mentally and physically). One of the greatest force multipliers is the APPEARANCE that the Guerilla (or the Guerilla Force) outnumber the Conventional Force.

This tactic most often manifest itself as a psych-warfare tool first. Keeping the enemy confused and fearful creates hesitation in how they will respond both tactically and strategically, which gives the guerilla more time to plan and attack. We can understand this point better as we listen to the Police radio traffic from that day of the attack in Dallas.

Now that we have briefly touched on some of the offensive aspects of fire and manuever warfare, let’s talk about the DEFENSIVE aspects.

The armed citizen must understand that regardless if it is you and a perp facing off at 10 feet in a gas station parking lot or you pinned down in an urban shootout like the one in Dallas, MOVEMENT = LIFE!

 I will be touching on some of the more detailed aspects of urban sniping and fighting in some later installments, but right now the key thing for you to remember is to ALWAYS MOVE TO SOLID COVER AND KEEP MOVING UNTIL YOU ARE OUT OF THE KILL BOX. 

In Combat Shooting you will often hear the maxim: “GET OFF THE X!” (With the “X” Being the Kill box.) For those of you that understand how the OODA loop works (Observe, Orient, Decide and Act) when you MOVE In a fight, regardless if it is empty hand, stick, knife or gun, you force your enemy to RESET their OODA Loop. Even something as simple as a side-step can buy you 1/2 a second of reaction time in a fight and that half-second may be all you need to neutralize your opponent or escape.

When we are talking about a situation like the Dallas shooting, where civilians were caught out in the open with a shooter in an elevated position, Movement can be a tricky thing. Depending on the shooter’s elevation, your cover may be of little use since the shooter may be able to position themselves to look OVER and DOWN onto your position. This is what I mean by having SOLID or 360 degree COMPLETE cover. Remember, If you don’t have a solid roof over your head, he may can see you and consequently, shoot and kill you.

Combine this fact with the shooter using “Fire and Maneuver” tactics and this is how you or your squad can end up being PINNED Down and eventually overwhelmed and killed. I cannot stress enough how important movement is in these situations. Staying “planted” in a kill box, regardless of how “safe” you feel, is a sure-fire recipe for a funeral.

Pictures from that day show how officers and civilians alike were “hugging” the ground, Getting as LOW as possible behind vehicles or any cover that was available.

Staying as Low as possible is a good tip anytime shooting is taking place, however, in an urban setting where the shooter is elevated, it is mandatory. We will discuss more on “Urban Sectors of Fire” in another post, but right now it will suffice for you to understand that in an urban setting, depending on how elevated the shooter is, he may be able to shoot further on the “oblique” than he can straight on.

Many elements factor into this equation of course, one of the primary ones being the type of rifle being used and the shooter’s skill level.

I highly recommend John L. Plaster’s The Ultimate Sniper and his chapter on Urban Sniping for further reading on this subject.

Stay Alert, Armed and Dangerous!

Guidelines for Integrating Inter-Team Communications Into Your Kit

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The cornerstone of why you need communications in the field is unit coordination. Teams must have a way to relay what they see and update the situation to other partner teams in the field and to a command location. This is what’s known as Inter-Team Communications and should be thought of as your lifeline for the Small Unit. One of the topics briefly covered in the RTO Course is how to integrate squad-level commo gear into your kit. After training with several groups I’ve noticed that this normally is an afterthought, so it’s something that I address through demonstration of my own gear during the second day. While I don’t require anyone to bring anything to class other than a notebook, pen, comfy shoes and a good attitude, on the FTX there is a little bit of team movement and scratching the surface on Small Unit Tactics (SUT)…

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China tests swarm of ‘suicide drones’ launched from a truck and helicopters

Everyday the novel Ghost Fleet written in 2015 by PW Singer is becoming a daily reality.

SCARY.