Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim

Tactical Tuesday Episode One - MILSIM Fieldcraft: How Things Get Done

April 10, 2021 Season 1 Episode 1
Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim
Tactical Tuesday Episode One - MILSIM Fieldcraft: How Things Get Done
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Tactical Tuesday with Modern Milsim, we begin our discussion regarding tactics, techniques and procedures with individual fieldcraft.  Fieldcraft is a general term to describe the individual skills each MILSIM player needs to master in order to complete his mission or tasking in the field.  They are the basic skills that make a MILSIM player effective.  In this episode, we will discuss:

  • Combat Marksmanship (2:10)
  • Situational Awareness (5:42)
  • Dead Space (7:48)
  • The Concept of Moving and Changing Dead Space (8:36)
  • Stealthy Movement (11:03) 
  • Noise Discipline (11:31)
  • Use of Hand Signals to Maintain Noise Discipline (12:06)
  • Light Discipline (13:13)
  • Cover and Concealment (15:18)
  • Hugging Cover (19:01)
  • 5 Rules for Using Concealment (22:00)
  • Scanning (27:31)
  • Transitioning from Scanning to Searching (29:52)
  • Indicators (30:07)
  • SLLS (Stop, Look, Listen, Smell) Checks (33:16)
  • The Battle Buddy Concept (35:25)
  • and more.

A new episode of Tactical Tuesdays is uploaded every two weeks typically on the first and third Tuesdays of the month.   

SHOW LINKS/RESOURCES

For a video regarding hand signals click HERE.

Two videos regarding SLLS Checks click HERE & HERE.   
 
To learn more about Craig White click HERE.

To find “From Alpha to Omega, A Milsim Tactical Primer and Training Manual” :  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FZ57B23/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

To find “From Insertion to Extraction:  Advanced MILSIM CQB Tactics, Techniques and Procedures” :  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07THX1CFT/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ModernMilsim
If you have a topic you would like to see in an episode of Tactical Tuesdays, please suggest it in the comments of the post containing the posted episode.  We do read them.

Website:  https://tacticaltuesdaywithmodernmilsim.buzzsprout.com

YouTube Instructional Videos:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUXI_GBdPeDuIoq_KJeCgWg

SUBSCRIBE

If you like what you hear on this episode, please subscribe and provide us with a review and a rating.    You can subscribe  to Tactical Tuesday on ITunes, Stitcher, Spotify and YouTube.  You can also find us on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/ModernMilsim.  If you like this episode, you can find others Here.

You can also find “From Alpha to Omega, A Milsim Tactical Primer and Training Manual” and “From Insertion to Extraction:  Advanced MILSIM CQB Tactics, Techniques and Procedures” at Amazon.com

TACTICAL TUESDAY WITH MODERN MILSIM - EPISODE 1 TRANSCRIPT 

Welcome to another episode of Tactical Tuesday with Modern MilSim. Through this podcast, we will bring you real world tactics, techniques, and procedures that will enable you to succeed on the MilSim battlefield. It's time to get ready.

Hello, and welcome to our first episode of Tactical Tuesday with Modern MilSim. I'm your host, Craig White. Thank you for being here. For today's topic, I have decided to discuss basic Milsim fieldcraft. I picked this topic because fieldcraft is the essential player skillset that serves as the basic underpinnings of more complex tactics, techniques, and procedures, or TTPs for short, that will be getting into in a future episode of this podcast.

Fieldcraft is a general term to describe the individual skills that each MIlsim player needs in order to complete his mission or tasking in the field. Some examples of Fieldcraft skills include Combat Marksmanship, Navigation, Camouflage, Understanding and Use of Cover and Concealment, How to Use Terrain to Mask Movement, Finding and Using Good Firing Positions, and Effective Observation and Detection of the Enemy.

This is the basic skill set that all players need to master before coming to an event. The more proficient you are with basic Fieldcraft Skills, The easier it will be for you to learn and implement more complex tactics, techniques, and procedures, the more tools you have in your tactical bag, the easier it will be for you to solve tactical issues on the field.

Although we're going to cover many fieldcraft skills in this episode, I'm intentionally holding off discussing some of them, such as cover, concealment and fire & movement, to a future episode where they can be discussed in more detail. So now that we've talked about fieldcraft in the general sense, Let's get into some individual skills.

First, let's talk about the most obvious Fieldcraft skill, Combat Marksmanship. I don't care if you're a Rifleman, Grenadier, Designated Marksman, Sniper, or Support Weapon Gunner, you aren't helping your faction or team if you can't hit what you're shooting at. As most of you know, airsoft replicas have a much shorter effective range than actual firearms.

With the exception of a well tuned, bolt action sniper rifle, used by an experienced shooter, Very few airsoft guns can effectively hit a man sized target beyond 100 yards or 300 feet. If your gun is not properly zeroed, you probably won't hit an opponent that is 150 feet away. For that reason, it is especially important to make sure that your gun sights, whether they be iron sights or optics, are zeroed at the center of the target, in other words, whatever part of the opposing player you are shooting at, at least 8 out of 10 times at the likely distance that you will be engaging them.

 That is what we refer to as aimed combat effectiveness. For most players with well tuned replicas, they will zero their gun to hit targets somewhere between 200 and 250 feet. Out of the box, many stock guns won't be effective past 150 to 170 feet. On the other hand, airsoft replicas that operate on high pressure air, or HPA for short, can be effective out to about 300 feet.

Act accordingly and zero your gun at the range where it will be effective. Because of the longer ranges associated with many MILSIM locations, Aimed Fire is usually the most effective way to hit enemy players. Now at shorter ranges, such as engagements in buildings or structures, point shooting can be an effective method of engaging enemy players.

Essentially, point shooting is what it sounds like. You aim by shouldering your weapon and pointing it at the enemy player without using your sights. So now, how do you determine your effective point shooting range? Actually, there's a fairly simple method for determining that. Start off by taking a position approximately 40 feet away from your target.

Next, fire 10 rounds at the target. If you can repeatedly hit the target 80% or 8 out of 10 times, then you've already determined your maximum point shooting effective range. If you cannot repeatedly hit the target 80% of the time at 40 feet, then move 5 feet toward the target and fire 10 more rounds at it.

If you cannot repeatedly hit the target 80% of the time at 35 feet, then move forward again 5 more feet and repeat the process. Rinse and repeat until you can reach a range where 80% of your rounds are repeatedly on target. When you get there, you have determined your maximum point shooting effective range.  Remember this distance. It will come in handy when you're engaged in a close quarters battle. We'll talk more about this when we get to the subject in a future episode of this podcast. 

Now, one thing that is different between firearms in the real world and an air soft replica is the hop up unit. One thing you have to remember is that you have to properly adjust this hop up unit.  So you are getting the maximum range out of your airsoft replica. Start with your hop up turn completely off. Then adjust your hop up to apply more hop to your BBs until they shoot flat. You will know you reached the correct setting when the BB has a slight rise toward the end of its range before dropping down to the ground.

If your BBs are dropping off shortly after they leave the barrel, you have not applied enough hop. On the other hand, if your BBs curve up toward the sky, or their trajectories become inconsistent, you've got too much hop been applied to them, and you need to dial it back a little bit. Like I said, you want to shoot in a flat trajectory with a little rise right at the end until it drops off at the end toward the ground.

Okay, so now that we've addressed the basics of combat marksmanship, It's time to move on to my next field craft skill, situational awareness. A simple definition of situational awareness is being aware of what is going on around you, perceiving and understanding any threats against you in your environment and anticipating what actions you will need to take to neutralize that threat.

 Situational awareness is a critical field craft skill. If you're not aware of what is happening on the Milsim battlefield, including where the enemy is and what you're supposed to be doing, you're not putting in the work that will translate into victory for your team or faction. For Milsim purposes, most Fieldcraft skills are intended to maximize your situational awareness while minimizing the enemies.

At the individual level, each player must know what task he is supposed to complete. And the purpose for why he is doing it. He also needs to be aware of his surroundings, especially while moving. The human eye is naturally drawn to movement. The faster you move, the easier it will be for the enemy to locate you.

For that reason, you need to move deliberately, but steadily while keeping your head on a swivel in an effort to see, hear, and possibly smell the enemy before he detects you. Typically, the shooter with the best situational awareness will prevail over one that is less situationally aware. As you move through the battlefield, you can't afford to be complacent.

As you move, continuously scan the area around you to locate potential enemy positions, enemy ambush points, The location of friendly team members and the location of any objectives that your unit is tasked to seize. Generally speaking, the player needs to keep his head on a swivel to make sure he is gathering all pertinent information concerning his position, as well as the position of all actual or suspected enemy positions nearby.

Keep in mind that the shortened range of weapon replicas, which are typically less than 250 feet, Engagement distances are going to be very short. Often firefights erupted distances that are considered to be contact distances with real firearms. As a result, it is especially important that each Milsim player maintain situational awareness of what is going on around him.

You don't want to be distracted by incoming fire to the point that you miss other enemy moving to flank you. Now one very important component of situational awareness is recognizing dead space. Dead space is typically defined as any area that you cannot see or put direct fire on from your current position.

If you cannot see a given piece of ground and shoot any enemy that may be in it, that is what we call dead space. Now, most players have an approximate 120 degree field of view, including their peripheral vision extended each side of their head. If you use the clock analogy that many of us are familiar with, 12 o'clock is directly ahead of you.

With that as the center point, most people's field of view is between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. As such, anything outside of your field of view is dead space. If you can't see the enemy, you can't hit him. That is why you're particularly vulnerable to threats in the dead space at your six behind your back.

Now keep in mind that dead space changes as you move. As you move forward or otherwise change position, You are likely clearing dead space ahead of you, while at the same time, recreating dead space as terrain moves out of your field of vision. This is the reason why experienced Milsim players keep their head on a swivel.  They know that the enemy can move up behind them while they are not looking in that direction. That is where the phrase, check your six, comes from. 

The need to lessen the effects of dead space is part of the reason why security or trail men in a formation are protecting the rear and why a buddy team of players tends to be more effective than a single player.  This is because you have additional players that are checking to make sure the enemy does not slip up behind you. Situational awareness is so important that MilSim players need to be cognizant of it in everything they do. If you don't know what is going on around you, you cannot make an informed decision on the battlefield.

As such, individual fieldcraft is intended to maximize the ability of friendly players to detect the enemy before being detected themselves. Being able to surprise an enemy force because you were able to detect it before they detect you is a massive force multiplier. And that's what I'm talking about here.

If you have a force that does not see you before you see them, it gives you an opportunity to move to a more advantageous position. Frequently, you will be able to flank, if not get behind the enemy and smoke them from that position. The big effect of that is that the enemy doesn't even know you're coming.  And then when you do shoot them, you're probably going to wipe out most of their force. And then on top of that, whoever's left is going to be demoralized by your efforts. 

So how do we maintain a good situational awareness while degrading the enemies? Well, that leads us to our three next field craft skills, scanning and searching to detect the enemy and the use of noise discipline and light discipline to prevent you from being detected by the enemy.

Situational awareness means not only knowing what the enemy is doing on the Milsim battlefield, but also preventing him from figuring out what you are doing as well, as well as when and how you're doing it. You don't want the enemy figuring out what you're doing until it is too late for them to do anything about it.

This is especially true when you and your unit are moving toward expected enemy contact. If you mask the sound of your movement while the enemy fails to do so, you will likely detect him first. This is a marked advantage that you can exploit by ambushing a smaller force or avoiding contact with a larger one.

As such, movement in the field should be done in a deliberate yet smooth and stealthy manner. Along those same lines, movement to contact should be done in cover or concealment. You need to stay out of open ground as much as possible except when there are no other reasonable options. Stay low while moving to minimize your profile.  It will help keep you from being silhouetted from behind. 

One thing that Milsim players need to constantly remember is the importance of noise and light discipline. Noise discipline is essential to stealthy movement. The sound of loud talking and the hissing from hurried whispers carry far ahead of the speaker and can reveal his position to the opposing force before they actually see him.  This is good if the enemy does not maintain good noise discipline. It is bad or worse for you if it's the other way around. Similarly, the sound of loose BBs or gear rubbing against clothing will likely notify the enemy of your approach. For that reason, you need to secure your gear with pieces of bicycle inner tube. or electrical tape to prevent it from moving around. 

Now to communicate without revealing your position through excessive noise, your team can use an agreed upon set of hand signals to communicate amongst themselves. These hand signals should include, but not be limited to various things such as freeze, halter stop, get down, look where I'm looking, listen to what I'm listening to, are you ready and understand what I'm talking about? or whether are you not ready and don't understand, there is enemy ahead, move up, cease fire, cover me and many more. 

Now, if you can maintain noise discipline, it will be much harder, especially in low light conditions for the enemy to pinpoint your position.  That's because they can't locate you by sound and they're going to have to rely primarily on sight to do so if they can't hear you. And like we've already talked about, if you're very good about not providing noise to the enemy, then really the only way they're going to be able to pick you up is if you're moving and their eye catches that movement.  If you're sitting still, especially in camouflage clothing and in a good position, more than likely you're going to be in a position to ambush them before they even know you're there. 

Now, moving on to light discipline. Let's talk about that a little bit. Like noise discipline, light discipline is important to maintaining stealth.  Especially at night or other low light conditions where the enemy cannot really see you. The effects of light and shadow can affect the enemy's ability to locate you in the battlefield environment. As such, you need to be careful to avoid light that can project shadows that will reveal your position to the enemy.

This concept applies both to natural light, such as sunlight. An artificial light like visible flashlights and non visible lights such as infrared. Now along those same lines you need to be careful not to silhouette yourself at the top of hills or ridges from sunlight. This is commonly referred to as skylighting or by stepping in front of an active flashlight in buildings.  A smart enemy will fire at the center mass of your silhouette and or above and to the right of your flashlight in an effort to take you out...This is because most shooters are right handed by shooting above and to the right of your flashlight. They're trying to hit you in the body based on where your light is likely mounted on your airsoft gun.

Now, this is often a big issue when you're talking about CQB. One thing I see all the time when I'm out on the field, especially with newer players, is that you will be inside a building and the person about three or four people back in the hallway. We'll turn on their flashlight and basically silhouette everybody in front of them.

They basically make the first three people a huge target for anybody who's sitting in the dark, because now they have big blotches of black in a light beam. So if you're one of the newer players, especially if you're inside a building and you're not the lead person or even the second person, you do not need to be using your light except in emergencies or after you're already engaged.  This is so that you don't set up the players that are walking as the lead or point people for being shot because they've been silhouetted by lights turned on from behind them. 

So, with that in mind, let's move on to another little subcategory here, cover and concealment. Let's talk about that a little bit.  Now some of you out there may be wondering what is the difference between these two concepts, between cover and concealment. Now, in my mind, the easiest way to describe it is to say that concealment is something that blocks observation, but does not block incoming fire. In other words, you may be concealed behind a bush where the enemy cannot see you, but that will not prevent him from shooting you through it.

An example of concealment is bushes and other foliage that initially hide your position until you fire out of them. Of course, once you do shoot out of concealment, The enemy is going to shoot back at you. And you're more than like going to be hit. If you do not smoke them all, it's very good for hiding you so that you have surprise on your side when you open up on the enemy, but once you do, it's going to put you in dire jeopardy because they will know where you are and just shoot back from where the fire came from.

So now in contrast to concealment, cover is something that blocks incoming fire from hitting you. Example of cover are buildings, bunkers, walls, trees, hills, and other terrain that stops incoming fire. Now for MILSIM purposes, there is a lot of things that normally would be considered concealment when you're dealing with real weapons, but do act as cover for airsoft.  This is because the six millimeter plastic BBs do not penetrate like bullets do. And so therefore, if you've got a pretty stout, you know, plywood wall or even some cardboard that can act as cover for you when you're out in the field in a Milsim event. Okay. But just remember, just because it's cover in Milsim does not mean it's cover when you're dealing with real world firearms.

Now, some cover such as a wooded berm can not only provide cover for you, but can also conceal your position. Similarly, you can use brush and grasses around the fortified position to conceal its location. Now, because concealment will not protect you from return fire, it is almost always better to occupy A covered position instead of a concealed one.

That being said, if you manage to have a covered position that also manages to be concealed, you've got the best of both worlds. You have a position where the enemy will not see you initially until you open up. And once they do, you're in cover. So it is unlikely that return fire will strike you or any of your buddies.  And that is the best position to be in. 

So now that we've discussed about what cover and concealment are, let's talk about how to best use them. Well, like we talked about a moment ago, cover only provides protection from incoming fire when it's positioned between you and the enemy fire. For example, if you're bigger than the tree you're using as cover, We will likely still be hit because the tree is only providing cover to part of your body.

If you're big and stocky like me, you need a big and stocky tree to basically hide behind. Little skinny tree, and I'm definitely going to get hit. Similarly, a brick wall is a great cover when it's between you and the enemy. However, if the enemy flanks you and attacks from the side or the rear, that wall is no longer effective cover.

So you have to keep in mind, when you're taking cover behind an object, where is it going to be good cover? And where are you going to be vulnerable to being hit from either the side or the rear or some other direction. Now, if you can get into cover where you're a four sided protected, like in a bunker, you're much less likely to be at risk from being flanked or hit from the rear simply because the enemy can't hit you.  Now, of course, we're going to bring up how to deal with bunkers again in a future episode. But that's just one example of where you need to be concerned about where you can be flanked from an enemy based on the cover you're taking. Usually when you're talking about trees. Part of the side of a hill or some other object like that, you're really going to have limited cover and only from the front. If the enemy happens to hit you from that direction. 

Now with that in mind, I also want you to think about this. Keep in mind that cover usually provides better protection, the closer you are to it, unfortunately, your ability to observe the enemy around cover dimensions, the closer you get to it, this is because cover obstructs more of your line of sight as you get close to it.

And this is another big issue. When you're talking about cover, hugging cover is great when you're getting pinned down. But once you're pinned down, it's hard to see around cover to see where the enemy is. And the closer you are to cover, the harder it is for you to see around it. So, a lot of times it might be better for you to have a little bit of standoff range behind the cover you're using, especially if it's a big tree, to allow you to see a little bit further past the tree and be able to see the enemy further away.

Now, typically you don't have to worry about hugging cover until the enemy starts to approach in much closer distances. The further away he is, the easier it is for you to have standoff from your cover and be able to use the observation to keep the enemy at bay. But once you get within I'd say 50 feet or closer, you can probably start hugging cover to try to get as much protection as you can and hope that your buddies will be in position that can eliminate the enemy from the flanks as they try to approach you.

So, let's talk about an example of how this concept works. All right, so let's say, for example, as a little thought process here, a little thought experiment, you're expecting enemy contact on a hill where your team or unit is positioned behind a large tree, which serves as your cover. Obviously, while the enemy is out of range is more important to keep the enemy in sight than hug closer to your cover. You need to be able to observe where the enemy is going and that they're so far away, they can't possibly hit you, even though you may be sitting out in the open at that point. So at least in those circumstances, it does not really make sense to move closer to the tree or to hug that cover where it would obstruct most of your sight down the hill. 

Now, as the enemy begins to come into range. You start to move closer to the bulk of the tree and to keep it between you and the enemy, which is typically your front as enemy gets closer to your position. Less of your body will be protected by the tree unless you hug up or get closer to it.  When you do that, you gain better protection from the cover provided by the tree. But the same time you're creating more dead space on the opposite side of the tree that you cannot see. 

Now, if your teammates are well positioned around you, they should be able to cover the dead space in front of your position, just like you should be able to cover the dead space in front of them, because you're in a position to mutually support each other and be able to cover each other's dead space.  But if you're the only one out in the field, it's going to be much easier for the enemy to move and flank you when you're hugging cover because you can't see where they're going. As such, it is generally better to be positioned closer to cover when the shooting starts than away from it. How close you need to be to cover to be effective depends on how large the cover happens to be and how far away the enemy is from your position.

Now, when it comes to effectively using the concealment aspect of cover, you need to apply five rules. Number one, when possible, look around cover instead of over it. People don't realize, or a lot of people don't realize, that when you look over the top of cover, you're exposing your entire forehead until you get your eyes above it.  And then at that point, you've got more than half your head exposed over the cover. Makes it a much bigger target. The better way to do it is to use the side of cover to look. When you do that, you can poke one eye around the side of cover and expose much less of your head and have a much smaller target for the enemy to try to hit.  That is why the general rule is, do not look over cover, instead look around it. 

Rule number two. If you cannot look around cover, avoid breaking straight lines formed by the edge of that cover. Think about this. Trees, logs, that kind of thing that got straight lines. And if you're sticking your head above a straight line that is formed by the trunk of a tree or something of that nature or a wall, you've got something that does not look right in the environment and it's going to draw attention.  And typically if you're an experienced player or most experienced players, they're going to go ahead and try to do a little recon by fire by shooting at that spotch thinking it may be somebody's head. And if your head gets hit, you're out of the game.  So if you're going to keep yourself quiet and hidden, you need to make sure you don't break straight lines.  It's better to look under it. Look around it, but just don't break a straight line because that's going to be very noticeable out on the battlefield. 

Number three, as much as possible, keep your body hidden in shadows. Shadows are very good about breaking up the outline of your body and enhance the effectiveness of your camouflage.  If you're wearing camouflage clothing and you're also in shadow, it's going to be very difficult for the enemy to pick you out most of the time. This is because the camouflage combined with the shadows is effective in breaking up your outline and preventing you from being seen. 

Number four. Avoid taking cover in and around obvious and conspicuous landmarks.  If there is a tree in the middle of a field, whatever you do, do not use that for cover. That is the one spot where everybody on the other side is going to be looking for you to be hidden and you will be drawing attention to yourself and more than likely will be eliminated. And it's usually better to find a less conspicuous or hidden spot, maybe a ditch somewhere or a patch of bushes or a low curb or something that you can use as cover that the enemy will not be expected to be there. Okay. 

So then we move on to number five. When you do move, move slowly, especially when you anticipate enemy contact. Like we talked about earlier in this podcast, and we will keep talking about this in later episodes of this podcast, the human eye is drawn to movement.  If you quickly pop your head up over the side of a fallen tree and your movement is within enemy's field of view, you're going to draw his attention to your position and you're going to draw fire. As such, you can improve your concealment simply by being still. And along those same lines, the human eye is more quickly drawn to fast movement than slow movement.  So if you have to move, move slowly. So that's what we're talking about here. Keep yourself hidden, move slowly, and if you don't have to move, sit still and wait for the enemy to come to you. That's what we call tactical patience. Okay, so at this point we've talked about using cover and concealment to initially obscure friendly positions before engaging the enemy and to cover and to protect you from return fire.

Now we're going to discuss techniques that players can use to increase their effectiveness on the Milsim battlefield. This skill is referred to as Individual Movement Techniques, or IMP. Okay, now that we're getting to Individual Movement Techniques, this is the part where we start taking the concepts that we've been talking earlier in this episode And start putting them together so that you can utilize them to both protect yourself from being detected and hit on the battlefield, or to increase your chances of observing the enemy before they see you.

This is all geared toward improving your situational awareness so that you're in a position to strike the enemy when he is not in a position to strike you. And while we're talking about individual movement techniques. When they're applied properly, this technique is a skill that will keep you in the fight longer and make you a more effective player.

The purpose of individual movement techniques is to increase the chances that you will detect the enemy before he detects you, and to maximize your effectiveness against the enemy once you are detected. Generally speaking, movement to contact should be done in a deliberate, yet smooth and stealthy manner.

While moving, stay out of open ground where you will be vulnerable to enemy observation. As you move, constantly scan the area around you for potential threats. Scan as much as possible without making quick head movements. As I mentioned earlier, the human eye is drawn to movement. That applies not only to running, jumping, and that sort of thing where your whole body is moving, but also to moving individual body parts such as your head.

Quick head movements increase the chance the enemy may locate you first. Especially if he sees you while you turn your head away from him. So he can see you, but you can't see him because you're looking the other way. The best way to scan is slow and deliberate, in an S pattern from left to right, and from near to far.

So basically, while you're sitting in your position waiting on the enemy, and you're looking out into the field, just scan periodically. Go slow, and look from left to right, and then when you go back a little bit, look right to left. And do that in an S pattern from near to far and back again. Now in forested areas, you need to be sure to scan through vegetation and not simply over it.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen this in my own experience, where people will be sitting there and they will be looking right at me, but they don't see me because they're just scanning over the foliage. They're not looking for things that don't look right. They don't look for things that are not natural.  And if you're sitting there and you're camouflaging, you're in the shadows and you're not breaking any straight lines or wearing uniforms that are a color that doesn't really match anything in the natural environment where you're playing, you know, they're not going to see you. Now, when you're doing this, you need to look for the human silhouette hidden in the vegetation.

Also look for a natural bumps at the base of trees, cough, cough, we call that tree cancer and or colors that are not typically found in nature. Now, when I'm talking about tree cancer, this is kind of a joke amongst most of the Wilson community. A lot of new players like to get up and they figure if they hide at the base of a tree, especially on one side, the people are not going to know they're there.

And you're usually just take a knee and just kind of hug up against the tree. Now, if you come from the right direction where you can see their body or a shape of their body sticking out from the side of a tree, whether it be a green lump or a black lump, that's not typical in nature. You don't have big lumps like that at the base of a tree and more often than that, that's going to be enemy players trying to hug up on a tree instead of maybe going prone, but they're not so visible.

So, when I scan while I'm moving, I focus 1st on the threat areas 1st and then move on to a lower threat areas. Now, when you scan while moving, you need to focus first on high threat areas and then move on to lower threat areas. You want to make sure that you look in a place that the enemy is most likely to be than not.  Scan slowly and look for things that don't look right in the environment, especially human silhouettes.  And then if you do see something, it doesn't look quite right. That's when you change from scanning to searching. Focus in on that area and really try to see if you can see somebody in that area. Look for movement, look for things that are out of place. 

Now, in addition to movement, there are several indicators in the environment that reveal threats hidden in it.  Some of these include, for one example, shape. And when we're talking about shape, you need to look for obvious non natural shapes out in the environment. The second one is shine. Shine means that you look for reflections from non natural surfaces such as weapons, eye protection, or sweaty skin. I'm not talking about water or that kind of thing.

You're looking for things like if you see something reflecting near the base of a tree, probably not natural. That probably means it's enemy player there. The third thing is shadow. Look for shadows of enemy that are cast outside of their concealed position. In other words, if somebody is hidden behind a spot and the sun's behind them, they will probably throw a shadow that will extend outside of their position and give them away.

The fourth thing we've already talked about a little bit, that's the silhouette. Look for an enemy silhouetted by a light source behind them. This often occurs where the enemy takes a position high enough on a hill for the sun to skylight them from behind. It also happens when flashlights are turned on behind somebody else where the beam of light basically creates an artificial silhouette to the people that are in front of that beam of light.

The next indicator is surface. And this is a little different than most of the others. And you've got to think about this one a little bit. Surface means you look for unnatural surfaces in the environment. If you see something that looks kind of dimpled in a regular fashion or something that does not look, um, non uniform, that's what we're talking about.

 If you see something where it's something's really dimpled and it just doesn't look right, it's probably a piece of uniform or a piece of armor or something like that. It doesn't belong there. And that's one way you can try to look at the enemy that way. And then the next indicator is spacing. You know, if you're out in the field, look for things and objects that are evenly spaced ahead of you.  And I'm not talking about fence posts, I'm talking about other things like supposedly rocks and things of that nature. If they are evenly spaced, that tends to be an indicator that something is not natural in that area. It doesn't necessarily mean an enemy's there, but it does mean something has been altered and an enemy could be there.  So take that into account. 

Now, these various indicators, shape, shine, shadow, silhouette, surface, and spacing are one of the many ways that you can find the enemy during your scans. Now you also have to remember, it cuts both ways. The enemy can do the same thing, so if you're breaking any one of these indicator rules, You're making yourself more likely to be observed by the enemy and eliminated by him.

Now, you can better maintain stealth when you're moving by maintaining noise and light discipline. Now, what happens if the enemy is also moving steadily, especially in concealed terrain at night or both? How are you going to know they're out there if the enemy is basically using the same rules you are?  And instead of walking around the woods talking to each other and shining lights everywhere, they don't talk and they don't use their lights. How are you going to find them? Well, the basic way you do this is what we call a SLLS check. And SLLS is the acronym S L L S. That acronym stands for Stop, Look, Listen, and Smell.  In a lot of these movies, I think the one I've seen most recently was Act of Valor. Where the SEAL team, it gets inserted and they haven't quite made it to the objective yet. And the members of the team take a moment, they stop and they simply don't do anything except sit there, get acclimated to the environment.

They listen, they look, and they try to smell the enemy. Or look for things that are out of place. This is one of the many ways that you can find the enemy. And this is especially true if the enemy is not maintaining noise discipline. Now, members of your team, or at least I would recommend members on your team, stop periodically as you're moving to an objective or wherever you're going to do these sales checks.

Now, SLLS checks are especially important when you enter or leave woodlines or urban areas where the eyes frequently need to adjust to differing light levels. When you're out in the bright sunlight in a pasture or something like that and you move into the woodlines, you're basically going to need time for your eyes to adjust.  And that's when a SLLS check is a good thing to do. You can sit there, adjust your eyes, listen and smell and see if you can find the enemy while you're sitting there because sounds and smells often travel far on a still day. They can also reveal the presence location enemy before you actually see them.  This advantage can be exploited by taking appropriate action to surprise the enemy through a well executed ambush and or to otherwise place them at a disadvantage. 

Now, up to this point, we have been talking about various field craft skills. That are organized around the concept of situational awareness, uh, either protecting your own situational awareness or depriving the enemy of his and the manner of both preventing the enemy from gaining situational awareness of your location, as well as the means of how you can go about detecting them. 

So that's one of the things I really wanted to get out of this episode, but in closing, I did want to address one more thing. I want to talk about battle buddies and a lot of you guys out there are probably really familiar with this, but battle buddies is a concept that I understand the army has been using for quite some time where basically you have 2 people that are assigned to each other to basically have 2 people in the field that can mutually support each other, whether they get in combat or otherwise in Milsim.  It really ends up being that if you have two players together, it more than doubles their effectiveness because effectively when you have one player, it's harder for him to maintain situational awareness because he only has 120 degree field of view to his front. Now, if you add in another player that can cover his six while they are moving.

Now they can move with confidence and they're better able to cover each other sectors and protect each other as they move through the battlefield. In addition, should they come in under fire, and we'll discuss this in more detail in later episodes, but it makes it easier to break contact because 1 of the players can put down a base of fire while the other 1 retreats to another position and then starts firing to suppress the enemy while the first person is also trying to extricate himself and break contact. So battle buddies are very important about that. And since we're getting into that, you know, this is really going to apply into fire movement in future episodes. Probably the next one I'll do the battle buddy system  actually assists each player in recalling the instructions given to them. Um, allows one to cover the dead space of another and otherwise provides support for each other. It also prevents players from going off on their own without anyone covering them. And so, the battle buddy is essentially instrumental in conducting fire movement, which we're going to get into in later episodes.

And I want you to think about this. The battle buddy is the most basic of all basic elements that make up military formations in Milsim. Two battle buddy pairs form a fireteam. Two fireteams form a squad. Two to three squads form a platoon, three or four platoons form a company and everything scales up from there…and you can basically apply most of the tactics we're going to be going into in future episodes. You can scale it up from a battle buddy all the way up to platoons. So I want you to keep that in mind as we go forward in additional episodes. Again, thank you for being here. I really enjoyed doing this podcast.  I'm going to have a lot of fun with it. I've got a lot to talk about, and I'm hoping this proves useful to you.

To our listeners out there, thank you for tuning in, and I look forward to providing you with new episodes every two weeks. If you like what you're hearing on this podcast, please subscribe and provide us with a review. We want to know what you like and how we can improve. You can also contact us on our Facebook page at facebook.com/modernmilsim with any suggestions you may have. Now for our next episode of Tactical Tuesday we're going to continue our discussion of individual field craft skills including fire and movement, using terrain to mask movement, crossing obstacles, making yourself a smaller target, and finding and using good firing positions.

 If you want to know more about application of real world tactics, techniques and procedures to MilSim, please check out From Alpha to Omega: a Milsim Tactical Primer and Training Manual, as well as From Insertion to Extraction: Advanced CQB Tactics, Techniques and Procedures. Both books are available at Amazon.com. As always, thank you for your support, and I'll see you at our next installment of Tactical Tuesday.

 

TRANSCRIPTION PERFORMED BY DESCRIPT.COM  

MILSIM Fieldcraft
Combat Marksmanship
Situational Awareness
Dead Space
Moving and Changing Dead Space
Stealthy Movement
Noise Discipline
Use of Hand Signals
Light Discipline
Skylighting
Cover and Concealment
Hugging Cover
Five Rules for Using Concealment
Introduction to Individual Movement Techniques (IMT)
Scanning
Transitioning from Scan to Search
Indicators
SLLS Check
Battle Buddies